31) Not Crying - Part 2

Hello and welcome to another episode of Learning English with Lyrics, I am your host Jake, and today we are continuing our breakdown of the song "Not Crying" by the hilarious Flight of the Conchords. If this is your first time joining us on the podcast, I want to welcome you and thank you for joining us today. If you haven't already, I recommend pausing the podcast right here, and listening to the episode titled "Introduction" before continuing. If you haven't had the chance to listen to Part 1 of this series, I'd also recommend listening to it before continuing. Alright, with all of that out of the way, let's get going.

The next section of our song says:
I'm not crying, no, I'm not crying
And if I am crying, it's not because of you
It's because I'm thinking about a friend of mine
You don't know who is dying, that's right, dying

This one is pretty simple, but let's talk about the language he's using here. It doesn't really sound too much like a joke does it? He just says that he's not crying, he's just thinking about a friend she doesn't know who is dying. Doesn't seem very funny does it? So, what's the joke here?

Think back to when you were in school. Did you ever have a friend who pretended to have a girlfriend that nobody ever saw? Maybe he would say something like "Yeah, I'm dating this really hot girl. You don't know her though." His insistence on the fact that you don't know her, without even telling you her name, gives away the fact that he's probably lying.

That is the essentially the joke here. Without even mentioning who the friend who is dying is, he preeemptively insists that she doesn't know the friend. To do something preemptively means to do it in expectation of something else. For example, if you think that it might rain, you might preemptively close all of your windows. So the singer is preemptively telling her that she doesn't know the person who is dying, because he expects that she will ask who it is.

Other than that, the grammar here is pretty simple. He says that if he's crying, it's not "because of you", that is to say, the woman who's leaving him. It's because of something else, the fact that he's thinking about a friend of his. The phrase "you don't know who is dying, that's right, dying." actually could have two meanings for the words "that's right." "That's right" is an interejection here, affirming what he just said. It could be there for two reasons. The first one is if he's making this up on the spot, that is to say, he's making this up as he's saying it, he's creating this story. And he says something and he wants to affirm it to himself. It's as though he just thought of this idea, of the fact that he's sad because someone is dying, so he's affirming it quickly, "that's right...dying". It adds emphasis to what he's saying, but it can also indicate to someone listening, that maybe he wasn't sure when he said it. It can tell us that maybe he's not quite telling the truth.

The other usage of "that's right" here, can be to affirm something that is surprising to the listener. So for example, when he says "I'm thinking about a fried of mine that you don't know who is dying" that could be something shocking to hear. Someone dying? A friend of yours? Wow. So when he says "That's right." He's saying "This is true!" "This is right!". I'm not really sure which one he means here. They both kind of work. We know that he's lying, so him sort of making this up as he goes along, kind of makes sense. That being said, he's tring to convince her, so affirming his own words is part of that convincing. I'll leave it up to you to decide which one you think it is.

Now we come to one of my favorite lines in the entire song.

"These aren't tears of sadness because you're leaving me
I've just been cutting onions, I'm making a lasagna...for one."

The phrase "tears of sadness" simply describes the type of tears he is crying. As we already know, he is indeed crying because he is sad, but he is lying and saying that he isn't crying. So, if he isn't crying, but there are tears coming down his face, what does this mean? Well, he's saying, essentially, "Yes, technically I'm crying, but these aren't tears of sadness"...So if they aren't tears of sadness, wel...what other types of tears could they be? Well, there are "tears of joy", when you are so happy that you cry. Tears of pain when you get hurt. And another type of tears that we see here. If you've ever cut up onions, you know that often while you're cutting, you might begin to tear up, or even cry. This is because of a chemical that is emitted, or comes from the onion. He's insisting that he's not sad, instead he's crying because he was just cutting onions.

Obviously, right after you've been broken up with, it's  pretty silly to say that you're crying because coincidentally you were just cutting onions. But, in addition to that, gives us an extra little detail. Why was he cutting onions? Well, it's because he was making a lasagna...and it's this final detail that makes this line hilarious. Because it's not just any lasagna, it's a lasagna...for one.

For one what? What is a "lasagna for one"?

Well, the simplest explanation would be to add some extra words in there to clear things up. A lasagna for one is a lasagna MADE for one person. "A lasagna for one." "A game for three" or "A table for 6". A very common usage of this phrase that is related to the song, is the very romantic "A dinner for two." This is usually referencing a date of some kind. "A dinner for two and a walk in the park" might be a romantic way to spend an evening with your significant other. Unfortunately for our singer, this isn't going to be possible anymore. He's emphasizing how alone he is by saying that he's making a lasagna...but only for one.

Even though he's insisting again and again that he's not sad that she is leaving him, he keeps mentioning it. It's on his mind constantly and he can't help but think about it. He's thinking about how he made a lasagna big enough for only one person, because he no longer needs to make a lasagna for two .

It's sad, but it's pretty funny. Well, I think so at least.

That's all we have for today. I hope you've enjoyed today's podcast, and we will have more for you next time. I'll talk to you then!

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