#437 - 5 Great Songs to LEARN Phrasal Verbs in ENGLISH — Let's Sing, Analyze the Lyrics, and Learn (with Dua Lipa, Taylor Swift, Guns N' Roses, Lady Gaga & More!)
34:23 Share

Hey Ethan, what's going on? Izzy, it's amazing to be back here in the studio talking about one of our favorite topics. And guess what I did last night? Last night? Well, based on today's lesson, you were preparing for it, so you're listening to maybe Dua Lipa? Yeah.

Almost. I had a very Brazilian cultural immersion. I went to a concert here of a band that I really love from Minas, from Minas Gerais, named Lagoon. Actually, Pachi, that used to work with us, she came from, she's living in Madrid now, so she came and we went together. We saw them together last year in Carnival.

They had like their own bloquinho there in Berga, in Belo Horizonte. And it was like a really nice reunion and just like being surrounded by Brazilians, like singing along with the band and they put on a great performance.

Yeah, amazing being able to have that even living in Barcelona. I think it's amazing how much you connect with Brazilian culture because it seems to be like more special to you in particular than some like other cultures, right? That you have been a part of somehow. Like you've lived in Brazil, right? For sure, yeah.

And I think besides just living there, like I have my Brazilian friend group here and I connect to the culture in different ways. Like when we also went out on Tuesday for buy-in food, you know, so it's nice to connect in different ways. And yeah,

Just like talking to people yesterday at the concert and so on. I wanted to share that just because I think it's like something that people can also look for those opportunities to connect to the culture, either doing that on your own or like looking for things like concerts or other ways that you can use the language in if you're living in a big city. I think that you can probably find something along these lines that you can do, right? Definitely. And if you're talking about learning English, I think it's very easy to find

somebody an artist a singer in your town singing in English right so if you just go to concerts and try to sing along learn the lyrics it's already a great way for you to live your English or even jam sessions when I lived in Mallorca we used to go to jam sessions do you know what that is well I used to play in jam sessions where I play guitar but I don't know if you're talking about the same thing

Yeah, it's kind of like open mic night. That's another way we say it. So you go to a place and kind of like anyone can go up and sing or play the instrument and so on. Karaoke with a live band, pretty much. Exactly. It's something like that without the corny...

background tracks. What does that mean if something's corny? It's not really trendy or fashionable in a way that is current. Maybe it's like old and cheesy is another word you could say, right? Like all those clothes that people would wear in the 70s, the 1970s. These days, they kind of look corny, right? Yeah. So we're having kind of a jam session today, right? To learn some advanced English phrasal verbs. Yeah, we are. So we have five songs.

Maybe more. I've set aside more, but we'll see if we have time for all of them. And these are from artists, from singers that you guys listening and watching us

You probably know. And that's basically what we're going to do today. You'll learn dozens of useful phrasal verbs in English in the best way possible with music. I'll sing, actually, Ethan, so be ready to listen to me singing. I've practiced. I'm looking forward to it. So I'll sing and together you and I will break down the advanced vocabulary and if we dare, also the meaning behind the lyrics. Oh, yeah. And Izzy, what do you mean when you say if we dare?

if we are courageous enough, if we're brave enough, we're going to take the challenge and try it. Or I will. In the case of singing, but we, in the case of analyzing the meaning behind the lyrics, because we can be way off, right? It's possible. Like these lyrics, a lot of times they, the artist, the composer meant one thing and they're just misinterpreting it.

Right. Totally. And sometimes they want to leave it open to interpretation, meaning that they want whoever's listening to be able to find the meaning that is appropriate for them within the lyrics. And with that word to dare, it's good to know too that we can use that to dare someone else. Like when your kid's playing truth and dare, I don't know if you have a similar game in Brazil. We do. Yeah.

Yeah, it's very uncomfortable game too, because like either you have to say, people ask you a question, you have to answer it truthfully, usually like a very personal question. Or you have to do a dare, which is also something very embarrassing, right? Usually. Yeah. So Izzy, I dare you to sing a song by Dua Lipa. All right. So this is Don't Start Now. I think everyone knows this. I thought I didn't know, like when you presented it to me,

Ethan, I was like, I don't know any songs from Jolly Purr. And then I listened to it. I was like, oh no, I totally know this. I can definitely sing it. I love it. So it goes like this. If you don't want to see me dancing with somebody If you want to believe that anything could stop me Don't show up, don't come out Don't start caring about me now Walk away, you'd know how

Don't start caring about me now. On to the guy who... Man, Izzy, that song is just so catchy. It's really hard not to sing along with you. I bet people listening are probably singing along, hopefully. It's totally catchy. And by the way, what does that mean? If something is catchy, it's that. That it makes you want to sing along, dance, you know, with it. It's just any sort of sticky pop song.

Bubblegum pop. It's like bubblegum in your mind, in your brain. So let's look at the lyrics. That's the chorus, by the way. Don't show up. Don't come out. So two interesting phrasal verbs already there for us to look at. What does that mean? To show up. If you show up, you appear somewhere. And usually it has this extra meaning that it's unexpected. So if I said, you'll never believe who showed up at the party last night. It's like this person came and I wasn't expecting them to come. And then...

come out we have come out so it's it's like towards the person speaking or go out away from the person that's speaking that have the same meaning and it basically means to leave the house to go somewhere usually when we say this we mean that we're going to a restaurant going out to a party going out to a club or something like this going out to paint the town red that's a really nice expression meaning that you're gonna go out and have a wild time nice and with the phrasal verb show up

That made me think of another one, popup, which can be used sometimes like the same way, right? A person may pop up somewhere, meaning show up unexpectedly. Yeah, we also use that for if...

Maybe something pops up in conversation, meaning that all of a sudden a topic kind of unexpectedly appears in the conversation. Nice, yeah. I think it's better to say pop up in that case instead of show up. You wouldn't say that a topic showed up in the conversation, right? Exactly. All right, so let's go to the next line. She says, don't start caring about me now.

Walk away, you know how. So again, two phrasal verbs there. To care about and walk away. But to care about, I think it's more basic. But it is important to know that the preposition there that you would use with care is about. In the sense that you are showing concerns for another person. You want to know where they are. You care about what happens to them. So you care about them.

And walk away... To walk away is to leave. And so based on all these phrasal verbs, if someone isn't sure what the song is about, it's probably that she ended a relationship with someone.

And now she's saying, you know, I'm going to go out with my friends, have fun, dance, whatever. And if you don't want to see me having fun, meeting other people and so on, then you better stay home. Dancing with somebody. Exactly. If you come out, if you try to find me, you're probably going to be jealous. And...

This like walk away too, oftentimes it's used with relationships like someone is abandoning the relationship. So she's saying like walk away, you know how kind of saying when we were together, you know, you often were leaving me. So it's just, you know, stay away from me, go away. Keep doing that. You're good at it. You've walked away so many times. It's like a bit sarcastic. Yeah. And I think we're going to move on to another popular song, Izzy. But one thing I did want to point out too with Phrase of Verbs is just the pronunciation.

that we have almost always connected speech when it comes to phrasal verbs, right? Because a phrasal verb is made up of a verb and what's called a particle, which is usually a preposition. And so we have content and function words in English, like the content words, like verbs, nouns, adjectives, they hold the core meaning of the phrase, whereas function words, which are usually different types of linking words, reduce.

And so this happens with phrasal verbs that will like show up, right? That we reduce the up and the W from show, which is fully pronounced, links to the up or so show up or come out, right? Caring about, walk away. Yeah. So it's good to practice that these always are linking together like that. True. They're word chunks. They're natural word chunks in English, right? So what's the next song you're going to...

jam out for us izzy all right so uh this one can be challenging because it is lady gaga who's singing it's from the the movie uh a star is born right i think it actually won an oscar for it did i'm not sure if it's like best composition or or something like that best yeah best song i think and it's with uh lady gaga and what's his name singing

Bradley Cooper. Bradley Cooper. That was an amazing performance, by the way. I was watching it the other week and it is like so captivating. So Shallow, which is the name of the song, goes like this, the chorus. I'm off the deep end, watch as I dive in. I'll never meet the ground. Crash through the surface where they can't hurt us. We're far from the shallow now. In the shallow.

And that's a challenging song. I'm impressed that you can sing that. Yeah, but I practiced when it came out in 2019, I think I was singing it all the time. And I do remember that the lyrics, they're,

Making, she's creating this metaphor with like pool and swimming and maybe drowning or something, right? So let's see. Maybe we can even explain some of the expressions here that are not exactly phrasal verbs, but they are more advanced native expressions. So she starts by saying, I'm off the deep end, right? I'm off the deep end.

So what is that if you're off the deep end? So swimming pools, they tend to have a shallow end and a deep end. And so like, you know, kids, for example, shouldn't go in the deep end, right? But figuratively, when we say someone is off the deep end, it's like they've gone crazy. They've lost their mind. And it has connected speech there too. Deep end, the deep end. And that's how she sings, by the way. I'm off the deep end, connecting those words. And then she goes on to use a phrasal verb here. I'm off the deep end, watch as I dive in.

So dramatic. If you dive in, it's like where you're, if you are watching the video, right? It's like you're putting your hands like this in front of you and going head first into the water. But we'll use it figuratively. It's like you're fully committing to something. So if you dive into a relationship, it's almost like you're quickly throwing caution to the wind.

There's an expression meaning that you're not thinking too much about it and you're just taking a risk. Not thinking about the consequences. Yeah. And you could also use this for like you're diving into a venture, for example. Maybe if you start your own company, again, you're just jumping in without thinking too much about it. So she goes on to sing, Crash through this surface where they can't hurt us.

So to crash through something, I can picture like a person doing like a cannonball, like diving into the pool and like cannonball, they're crashing through the surface of the pool, right? It makes me think of a very iconic, maybe we could show this like a very iconic scene from the typical American movie when I was a kid, Sandlot, about kids playing baseball.

Yeah, the crash through it's like the same as breakthrough. You might also action movies sometimes like the heroes crashing through a window on a motorcycle or something like this. You're passing through it while also crashing, right? So it's a surface is something that can crash through or a window like glass usually, right? Or if you're like in a Looney Tunes movie like you can crash through a wall. Yeah.

I think she's using it. So this isn't like a common use of it, but I think it's being used with the same sort of meaning as dive in of throwing caution to the wind, you know, just jumping in without worrying too much about the consequences. All right. So let's move on to the next song. This one is called The Days by Avicii. Do you know that one, Ethan? I do. Yeah. He's a phenomenal, like legendary DJ, right? Yeah.

He is unfortunately he passed away, but he was so talented. So this one goes like this. So here immediately I can see.

I think this is a phrasal verb, right? To "you had a chance and you took it on me." So the phrase would be "to take a chance on someone"? I think there's a song that's like, "take a chance on me." It means that you are taking a risk on something.

So if you take a chance on someone, it's maybe you're not so sure if it's going to work out. You're afraid, you know, of committing in a relationship, but you take a chance anyway. You take the risk. So it's kind of similar to what we were looking at from Lady Gaga, right? Throwing caution to the wind, diving in. It's a creative way to actually use that phrase of reflection. You had a chance and you took it on me. You took that chance on me. So he follows that with, like, I made a promise that I couldn't keep, so...

Not a phrasal verb, but it's important to know that a promise is something that you can keep. It's a collocation to keep a promise or to break a promise would be the opposite. There you go. Yeah, it's important to know that. So anyway, that was the first verse and it follows with the bridge to the chorus singing...

Now this is rich with expressions here, right? With this second part. So heartache, heartbreak all over town, but something flipped like a switch.

It's an expression like a switch, like when you turn on a light in your house, you flip a switch, right? So it happened like this. Yeah. Right. It happened instantly. But when you came around, something flipped like a switch. So what does that mean to if someone comes around? Come around means that you appear somewhere. So we had earlier show up, which has that sort of unexpected nature to it.

But come around isn't necessarily exactly the same, but it does have this kind of like casual way about going to visit someone. So to give an example, maybe I call you up and I say, oh, do you mind if I come around later? I've...

and drop some things off or maybe I could come around later. We could have coffee. Yeah. It sounds casual. Just like, uh, to pop somewhere to like what we were saying, right? Pop in, pop by. Yeah, exactly. Come around. And then he follows, uh, and I'm in pieces. Pick me up and put me together. So two phrasal verbs there to pick someone up and to put them together. Yeah. You could literally pick someone up, like pick a baby up or pick a dog up or cat up. Right. Uh,

It could also mean that you're giving that person support. And I think a really fun use of this actually can be as a noun, it's like a pick-me-up. A pick-me-up is something that might give you energy. Like coffee is a pick-me-up, right? Coffee is a great pick-me-up. It makes me think of, there's a snack my mom used to make me when I was little, and I still like to make this sometimes, it's like toast with peanut butter, bananas, sometimes like a drizzle of honey. And she would call this a peanut butter pick-me-upper.

Cause it's like something that gives you a lot of energy, the, you know, all the fat from the peanut butter, the banana, the like sugar from the banana. I like that creative way of constructing phrases in English too, like a pick me upper, which is something that picks you up. You add that ER. Exactly. Nice. And it puts you together as well, right? Like it's something that puts you together in a way. Yeah. Put me together. That makes me think more of like someone that went through a crisis or a really challenging time in their life.

And so it's like, you know, if you're giving me support, you're helping me to put back the pieces, you're helping me to get my life together again. It makes me think too of like you put together a puzzle, a puzzle that's all in pieces, you find how to put the pieces together so it's whole again.

Maybe this is what the line kind of makes you envision picture here, right? It's like, I'm in pieces, pick me up and put me together. So you pick up the pieces and put the pieces together like a puzzle. So in the chorus, the next line, he will say,

"These are the days we've been waiting for. On days like these, who could ask for more?" So in there you can see another more basic phrasal verb, "to wait for something", right? That's the preposition that you want to use with "wait". "Wait for somebody". And now let's move on to a song by Taylor Swift.

Now, of all songs here, I think this may be the one that our younger audience knows the most, right? Could be. Could be. And this one is called We Are Never Getting Back Together. What does that mean, by the way, to get back together? Yeah, it already has one, like, it already has a phrasal verb right there in the title, right? Mm-hmm.

It also makes me think of another song, Get Back by the Beatles. So if you get back somewhere, it's you return somewhere. And then when you apply this other word to it together, get back together, then it's like you're returning to a relationship after you've already broken up. So if you get back together, you broke up, but then you're deciding to give it another shot. And this is Taylor Swift's like,

She likes the genre, right? Of like breakup songs and so on. It's most of them I think are like this. And you use another phrasal verb there to break up, to split, to stop being in a relationship, right? And then you can come back together or get back together again.

and be a couple again. So let me sing the first verse, which is quite full of storytelling, and we can break up some of the advanced vocabulary there. I remember when we broke up the first time saying this is it, I've had enough. Cause like we hadn't seen each other in a month when you said you needed space. What? Then you come around again and say, baby, I miss you. I swear I'm going to change. Trust me. Remember how that lasted for a day. I say, I hate you. We break up. You call me. I love you.

Break up, we already covered that, right? So I remember when we broke up the first time. And it's funny because in the song, they break up like multiple hundreds of times, you know? Yeah, it's one of those relationships that it's on and off. On and off, yeah, that's great. What does that mean if a couple is on and off? It's basically like that. They're breaking up and getting back together and breaking up again. It's like Rachel and... I was going to say Chandler. Rachel and Ross from Friends. Then she'll say...

You know, once they break up, they'll say like, this is it. I've had enough. It's an advanced expression there to have enough or something. What is that? If you've had enough, something it's you don't want anymore. You're full of it. You could also say you're fed up. It's like, I don't want it anymore. I think a nice way to think about this might be, for example, if you just for chocolate, maybe you go on a chocolate binge.

chocolate ice cream binge, you know, you just eat so much that it's like you're fed up, you can't eat anymore, you're gonna throw up if you or vomit if you try to eat anymore ice cream, chocolate ice cream. So next we have another phrasal verb that we have already seen. So it showed up again. This phrasal verb here. Then you come around and say, right? Then you come around again and say. We know what that means. The person suddenly showed up at her place, at her house again, saying, baby, I miss you. I swear I'm gonna change. Trust me.

But remember how that lasted for a day. Because last time he said that, that whole like promise that he didn't keep just lasted for a day, right? Right, yeah. Something lasts for it's like the duration of it, right? Like the movie lasted for 90 minutes. So now we get into the bridge and the chorus. So she say...

So they called it off again last night.

What is that? If you call something off, you cancel it. But in the case of a relationship, it's like you break up again. You call off the relationship. Right. But you can call off a meeting, right? Or an event. You literally call the person like, hey, let's postpone. Let's reschedule. You're calling it off. Okay. So in the next verse, after the chorus...

There's more phrasal verbs that I think is really interesting. She'll say, "I'm really gonna miss you picking fights and me falling for the screaming that I'm right and you had a wedding, find your peace of mind." There's a nice expression here to pick a fight that just means to start a fight, right? And then she says... Maybe you didn't have to, right? You're picking a fight kind of has that conversation. Exactly. Yeah.

My brother would do this a lot when we were little. I don't know if you had that issue with your brother. A little bit, yeah. Brothers tend to pick fights with each other. She's

she says that she falls for it so maybe she's talking about probably his promises false promises he makes she falls forth what does that mean to be deceived to be tricked into something right like you're falling for so but this is like with the case that she's saying falling for it but it's interesting too because you can say fall for someone if you fall for someone it's like you fall in love with them that is true yeah you could say i'm really falling for you means like i'm really

you know gaga over you yeah that's interesting because there is that uh play on words there because you can fall for someone but if you fall for something fall for it you are being tricked like you think it's something but it's not it's not the truth it's not the case and the final one hide away you would hide away and find your peace of mind so somebody who just like walks away and vanishes disappears

They're hiding away. In this case, like maybe she's trying to contact him, but he's hiding. He's not responding. He's on purpose. He's ghosting her. Maybe that's a nice expression, right? Nice. Yeah. And he does that so he can find his peace of mind, as he says, probably. And she also finished that verse with saying like a,

Find a space of mind with some indie record that's much cooler than mine. So a record is like a disc or an album that you can listen to from an artist. Indie I think comes from independent, right? Independent. Meaning it's not mainstream. It's not pop music, popular music, right? Which she is. And she is pop. So yeah. Because it's just like her tone in it, which is funny because you don't tend to hear this in songs. It's like very sarcastic. Like that's so much cooler than mine.

Because that's probably she's just imitating him, right? Maybe. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not a huge fan. Like I, but I still feel that whenever I listen to one of her songs, I can get into it just because of the storytelling and her interpretation. The storytelling, the writing. She's a great songwriter and she's like so prolific.

like, love her or hate her, I just feel like she has that every year she tends to put out an album with, like, tons of songs like this, so... To put out an album? It's another phrasal verb? What does that mean? You release it. You put it out, you release it. Now, let's get into the final one here from this list of songs that we put together for this lesson. This one is by Incubus.

The name of the song is Wish You Were Here. There is Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here, right? How I wish, how I wish you were here. Yeah, I love that song. Yeah, it's not that one, even though I love that one too. But this one, I used to sing it a lot when I was playing more often like guitar and singing in like 2010, 2011. And I had like a band and this is a song that we would play.

So I was not the singer, but I believe I can sing this. I dig my toes into the sand. The ocean looks like a thousand diamonds strewn across a blue blanket. I lean against the wind. Pretend that I am weightless. And in this moment, I am happy. Happy I am.

I wish you were here. Oh man, I love this. There's another verse which has some other expressions, but let's just see what's in this one. Dig your toes into the sand. I dig my toes into the sand. What does that mean? So if you dig into something, it's just literally like you go down into the ground. So this is a very easy one to imagine that if you're sitting on a beach and you're kind of like,

you know, bringing up the sand over your feet with your toes. You're sinking maybe your feet into the sand as well. So the ocean in that nice picture there, it looks like a thousand diamonds strewn across a blue blanket. What is that? Do you know that one? Strewn across a blue blanket? Yeah, I do know that one. But I'm trying to think if it's like strewn across. It sounds weird because you often hear it in this way, strewn across as more of an adjective or adverb. Mm-hmm.

but i guess it's true across which it's usually like you're taking particles like something small thing and you're spreading it spreading it so makes me think of for example when people get married there's this tradition at least in the states that people throw rice at them so you might after have like the ground there's rice strewn across the ground where the newly married couple was walking oh yeah nice application for that in this case it's more poetic right like you can't imagine that the ocean is like a blue blanket

And then, on top of it, there's like all the texture of the waves, you know, which looks like a little bit white, a little bit off blue and on top of that blanket, you have these diamonds strewn across it. Nice poetry there. Like the sun probably reflecting over the waves, right? Exactly. So, in that situation, he is leaning against the wind.

Again, this is more poetic. You can't really lean against the wind, right? But what does that mean to lean against something? You put your weight against this. You might lean against the wall. You know, when you're tired, you kind of like lean back. I'm leaning back against my chair now, if people are watching. It's a nice particle there, against, that you can use with other verbs, right? Or other expressions. You're back up against the wall. It's another...

phrase there you could say so you have to lean against something is that and if you lean against the wind that doesn't you can't really do that you'd fall but uh sometimes if it's strong enough like when i was skiing last week and there was like one day that the wind was so strong that is like just had like put your hands out and like not give any effort because it just

It just pushed you forward. Yeah, I don't think that's what he means to get here though. Probably not. Can you imagine? It's like intense. Anyway, so the second verse goes like this.

This guy resembles a backlit canopy with holes punched in it. I'm counting UFOs, signal them with my lighter and in this moment I am happy, happy I'm sure. So cool, right? Like this guy resembles a backlit canopy with holes punched in it. So...

like uh you can really picture like what is that like a canopy by the way yeah this is a type of bed like the old-fashioned ones that have uh like a sheet kind of like it has like four posts and then like a sheet over it so you can or i guess it'd be like curtains so if you wanted to like close and have privacy on the actual bed but this isn't so common nowadays

And it's really nice imagery. If you imagine you were laying in this type of bed that has like sheet over it, but it has a bunch of holes punched in it. Meaning if holes are punched into something, it's just like they're born through it. They're created holes in it. And I guess like light going through it. So it's like, it looks like UFOs.

I don't know if this guy took something, if he's on something. Maybe. I mean, he's saying words like, this guy resembles a backlit camera, but he's just like lying there, right? As if he was like on bed, in bed, but watching the sky. Anyway, so this one, as I was saying, is a song that I was singing a lot in play more than 10 years ago.

And it reminds me of when I went to another state when I was 18, I actually moved to Sao Paulo to start a rock band. Yeah, you've been mentioning this in so many podcasts and we've been meaning to like, actually, we're just teasing, teasing the story. I haven't even heard this. Like I've heard you mention it, but I'm curious about the nitty gritty, the details. Yeah, you say you're teasing or I'm teasing.

you guys with this. What does that mean? If you tease someone, it's kind of like you a little bit, you give them a taste of something, but you leave them wanting more. So let's get into the nitty gritty of the story here. I mean, the details. When I was 18, I actually left my mom's house and moved to a state that's like 3,000 kilometers away. So like three hours by plane. I did that so I could start a band with a buddy.

I met him on social media. Wow, you didn't even know him in person? No. So that was really throwing caution to the wind. It really was. You heard that expression before. So I stayed at his house where he lived with his parents. So it was not the most...

comfortable thing but i think for them it was even more uncomfortable because i stayed there for one month this rando coming out from another part of the country and yeah staying on their couch exactly i called them like the week before just to like hey um that'd be okay you know just for a few days you know i will find a place to stay

And I didn't. I struggled to find another house to rent. And I stayed there for a month. They actually moved. And I helped them move. You know, I would put stuff in the truck and everything. So when they went to the new place, I went with them. I was there still for another week. And eventually I rented the house that they were staying before, which is a small house. So for me, it was good. Yeah. I found that one place.

Yeah, so me and this friend of mine, we initially were looking for bandmates and for people to play with, but we couldn't find anyone. And I was running out of money, you know, and I was like, okay, what are we going to do? And then we thought about, let's start playing acoustic guitar and just play at bars.

Oh yeah, Global Citizen. So if you want to watch the rest of the episode and get to hear all about Izzy's story while also learning even more expressions, vocabulary, connected speech, and so much more, you can do that exclusively over on the Real Life English app. All you have to do is click the link below

in the description below, which will take you directly to this episode and you can finish it up there. While you're there, you can also use the innovative vocabulary flashcards to study spaced repetition, which works along with your brain to remind you of new words and expressions right when you're about to forget them so that you never forget them and you have them available to you when you get in conversation. Because I know it's really frustrating when you're talking to someone and that word that you know that you've learned simply will not

come to your mouth. So you put in so much effort today. Don't forget all these new expressions that you learned like show up, put together, call off, and so many more. The flashcards are waiting for you over in the app. You just have to look up for RealLife English in your favorite app store or just click the link down below. See you there.