Back to school! The day has come around again and what better way to mark it than with this song by The White Stripes? You can find it on their record White Blood Cells, which they made in 2001; a time at which they were truly at the top of their game.* And you can also find it here:
«I can tell that we are gonna be friends«
So what did you think of the song? Did you like it?… love it?… hate it? I can’t tell because there’s nothing I can see, hear or in any way perceive that’s going to lead me to an answer to the question. That’s the essence of this use of ‘tell’: something we find out by observing or recognising, or a conclusion we reach about someone or something thanks to our senses and feelings.
You might also come across** it in the phrase ‘tell the difference’, which we use to say that we can or can’t see how two or more people or things are different from each other. When The White Stripes first appeared they portrayed themselves as a brother and sister act, when in fact they were husband and wife. Could we tell the difference? Probably not. Did we care? Not that much.
Apart from the above, there are many more things to love about the lyrics to the song. We can tell from these wonderful, charming and heart-melting lyrics that the song’s all about school as seen through the eyes of the youngest.
«Fall is here, hear the yell
Back to school, ring the bell
Brand new shoes, walking blues
Climb the fence, books and pens
I can tell that we are gonna be friends
I can tell that we are gonna be friends
Walk with me, Suzy Lee
Through the park and by the tree
We will rest upon the ground
And look at all the bugs we found
Safely walk to school without a sound
Safely walk to school without a sound
Here we are, no one else
We walk to school all by ourselves
There’s dirt on our uniforms
From chasing all the ants and worms
We clean up and now it’s time to learn
We clean up and now it’s time to learn
Numbers, letters, learn to spell
Nouns, and books, and show and tell
Playtime, we will throw the ball
Back to class, through the hall
Teacher marks our height against the wall
Teacher marks our height against the wall
And we don’t notice any time pass
We don’t notice anything
We sit side by side in every class
Teacher thinks that I sound funny
But she likes the way you sing
Tonight I’ll dream, while I’m in bed
When silly thoughts go through my head
About the bugs and alphabet
And when I wake tomorrow, I’ll bet
That you and I will walk together again
I can tell that we are gonna be friends
Yes, I can tell that we are gonna be friends»
*’be at the top of your game’ is a pretty self-evident idiom you can use to say that someone is performing, playing etc. at their best.
**’come across’ is the phrasal verb we use to say that we find something by chance. If you meet someone by chance, then you’ll want to use ‘bump into’ or ‘run into’.
***And if you’ve got this far, then thanks for reading!
Academia de Inglés Robin 