Thursday, September 25, 2025

"Oh No, Not My Baby"

Last month, I had a small realization about the structure of "Oh No, Not My Baby."  I'm more familiar with the live versions on Live at the BBC 64-66, and I wanted to listen to the studio version again to confirm my suspicion before writing about it, so yester-day, I listened to My Little Red Book of Winners!

The couplet "Oh no, not my baby / Oh no, not my sweet baby" recurs throughout the song, and its being repeated so often evinces what the narrator himself says at the end of each verse:  that he "kept on sayin'" this.  Basically, the structure matches the meaning.

When I transcribed some of the lyrics, I also noticed an ambiguity in the line "She's not like these other girls you see."  "You see" could function as a sort of interjection or as a headless relative clause describing the girls ("these other girls [whom] you see").