I looked up the lyrics of Michael Jackson's "Black or White" on 6 different sites. They all have part of it written as: I Am Tired Of This Devil I Am Tired Of This Stuff I Am Tired Of This Business Sew When The Going Gets Rough I Ain't Scared Of Your Brother... Is the word really "sew" instead of "so" - do they ALL have it wrong? Or are you supposed to sew when the going gets rough?

star_gazer

This youtube video plays the song while showing the printed lyrics. Another possibility is that the word "sew" is used as the proper pronunciation for the word "so" in this song. Call it a case of artistic license. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjZwi_PJiio Jul 17 09, 9:07 PM

zbeckabee

I'm pretty sure it should be "so..." : I`m tired of this devil, I`m tired of this stuff, I`m tired of this business, so when the going gets rough. I ain't scared of your brother, I ain't scared of no sheets, I ain't scared of nobody, girl when the goin' gets mean. http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/tabs/m/michael_jackson/black_or_white_crd.htm http://music.yeucahat.com/song/English/4199-Black-Or-White~Michael-Jackson.html Jul 17 09, 9:20 PM

Verbonica

Yes, Zb, "so" just has to be correct. Does anyone have liner notes from the album? I wonder where the "sew" error originated? If you google 'jackson black white sew' it comes up with 158,000 entries! p.s. Sorry that my question ended up such a mess up there - it was all lined up when I typed it in. Jul 17 09, 9:32 PM

zbeckabee

Here...check this out...it says SO: http://www.island.lk/2009/07/07/L3.pdf Jul 17 09, 9:46 PM

Datsmeharse

Many lyrics are copied, wrongly, from site to site, you see it all the time...lyrics sites like lyricscrawler, getalyric, lyricist etc, basically feed off each other, and often copy from the guitar tab sites which are built wiki-style, so they can be way off. Mimi's link seems to have them right, though I always thought he says "Go when the going gets mean," like ignore someone if they start using slurs: http://74.6.239.67/search/cache?ei=UTF-8&p=%22go+when+the+going+gets+mean%22&fr=yfp-t-501&u=www.geocities.com/carlobchang/fall_lesson6handout2.doc&w=%22go+when+the+going+gets+mean%22&d=cfgxIRlMS2ZB&icp=1&.intl=us Jul 17 09, 9:47 PM

jennie4

Oddly, the word "sew" appears in the songbook Michael Jackson HIStory, (c) 1995 Warner Brothers Publications. Since this is more or less an official source, I believe that must have been the way the lyric was written by Jackson, although I can't understand why he would write it that way. Nov 08 10, 12:08 AM