To whom it may concern,

I would like to offer my services as a Musical Grammarian. I understand that this is an unusual concept, so let me explain. I enjoy listening to the radio, and often listen to popular music on the radio. I am no music connoisseur, but can appreciate a good beat, catchy tunes, and decent lyrics. The last item, however, is where, I believe, songwriters sometimes struggle. In attempting to convey a certain thought or a feeling, lyricists often sacrifice grammar for the sake of rhyme. And while I can appreciate the need for a good rhyme with proper cadence, musicians need to bear in mind that if they do wish to be heard by the masses, they must accept responsibility for educating said masses, and accept their roles as de facto masters of the English language. Thus, they must themselves master the English language.

Many may scoff at the idea. "I create music," they may argue. "not grammatical textbooks." (Okay, I really doubt anyone would ever state that particular sentence, but I think the message is clear). But already our next generation of leaders is more familiar with texting abbreviations and lingo than with proper sentence structure (please feel free to correct me if I am wrong - in complete sentences). And by providing a catchy tune with memorable lyrics, you - the musician - hope to have listeners everywhere singing your song over and over again, even when the radio or iPod is turned off. And as such, you should recognize that in the middle of English class, when your fan is asked by the teacher (or exam) to provide the proper word to fill the sentence "just between you and ___", that this impressionable youth that saved up his/her allowance money just to get your album (or download your tune from iTunes) or get concert tickets to your show doesn't get a C instead of a B because you chose to use "I" to rhyme with "sky".

In case you don't believe the problem exists, let me back up my statement with a few examples of poor English language choices in popular music:

1) Ironic - Alanis Morrisette (1996): Click here to read a decent rundown of how accurate the song really is in defining what irony is (it isn't). But to sum up, 1) I appreciate the irony of a song about irony not accurately defining irony, but 2) applaud the attempt. If it ended up serving as a decent jumping point in English classes everywhere to discuss the fine points of what irony is and isn't, then that's cool.

2)If You Love Somebody, Set Them Free - Sting: Again, I know I'm going way back on this one here, but this one really irks me since Sting started off as an English teacher, so there really is no excuse for not coming up with grammatically correct lyrics (to be clear: "Somebody" is singular, "Them" is plural. They just don't belong together!) I understand wanting to appeal to both genders, but this isn't the way. Pretend to talk to one person (and thus pick one gender) and let people attracted to people of the non-mentioned gender figure it out for themselves (see, "people" and "themselves" are both plural, so it's okay), record two versions of the song, or come up with some other solution. Be creative. You know you can. Or rather, you could have. It's too late now. I just hope that whenever someone thinks to remake this song, that songwriter bears this is mind (or perhaps that is why it hasn't been remade).

3) Big Girls Don't Cry - Fergie: "I'm gonna miss you like a child misses their blanket". Hopefully this is obvious. If not, let me suggest "I'm gonna miss you like a child misses his blanket." As this is a fictional child conveying the extent of missing, it doesn't need to be globally approachable. It could just as easily be "her", but then would that convey that a girl child misses a blanket much more than a boy child would, thus implying weakness or depen