I've been struggling up here just trying to make a living
Everybody wants to take and nobody likes giving
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| Now, honestly
-- can you even believe that, how truly great it is? These aren’t just
lyrics; they’re as fine a piece of poetry as any American has ever
written. Not in the sense of “natural unschooled poetry” as a
certain especially loathsome academic mindset would have it, either: I mean
to say that this is as canny and well-constructed a poem as anything else
I could name. As a storyteller Chuck Berry is practically without an equal.
Consider the deceptive simplicity of his scene-setting here, and how quickly
but almost unnoticeably he shifts from one form of reporting to another: I've been struggling up here just trying to make a living Everybody wants to take and nobody likes giving |
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