Is “Write An Open Letter To Miley Cyrus” this year’s version of “Perform At Live Aid“?
Folk pop rambler Sufjan Stevens has followed Sinead O’Connor’s footsteps, and penned an open letter to Smiley Miley. Unlike Sinead though, who first implored Miley to “say no when you are asked to prostitute yourself”, and whose contact soon disintegrated into an open letter war now numbering five messages after Miley poked fun at O’Connor’s mental illness and compared her Amanda Bynes, Stevens instead took out his red pen and corrected the grammar Cyrus incorrectly uses in her new song #GetItRight (her hashtag, not ours).
Stevens posted this message on his “Ghetto Blog” beneath a Cyrus screenshot:
Dear Miley. I can’t stop listening to #GetItRight (great song, great message, great body), but maybe you need a quick grammar lesson. One particular line causes concern: “I been laying in this bed all night long.” Miley, technically speaking, you’ve been LYING, not LAYING, an irregular verb form that should only be used when there’s an object, i.e. “I been laying my tired booty on this bed all night long.” Whatever. I’m not the best lyricist, but you know what I mean. #Get It Right The Next Time. But don’t worry, even Faulkner messed it up. We all make mistakes, and surely this isn’t your worst misdemeanor. But also, Miley, did you know the tense here is also totally wrong. Surely you’ve heard of Present Perfect Continuous Tense (I HAVE BEEN LYING in this bed all night long [hopefully getting some beauty sleep?]). It’s a weird, equivocal, almost purgatorial tense, not quite present, not quite past, not quite here, not quite there. Somewhere in between. I feel that way all the time. It kind of sucks. But I have a feeling your “present perfect continuous” involves a lot more excitement than mine. Anyway, doesn’t that also sum up your career right now? Present. Perfect. Continuous. And Tense. Intense? Girl, you work it like Mike Tyson. Miley, I love you because you’re the Queen, grammatically and anatomically speaking. And you’re the hottest cake in the pan. Don’t ever grow old. Live brightly before your fire fades into total darkness. XXOO Sufjan
If the Internet has taught us anything, it’s that the only thing you can’t get away with online is poor speling, punctuation; or also grammar.
Via sufjan.com
