"all stove up"-- "I feel so break-up"

[Laurence Horn]

>On Jun 1, 2004, at 9:33 AM, Dale Coye wrote:
>
>>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>-----------------------
>>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>Poster:       Dale Coye <Dalecoye at AOL.COM>
>>Subject:      Re: "all stove up"-- "I feel so break-up"
>>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
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>>
>>This reminds me of the Weavers' song-- not sure of the title but the
>>first
>>line is "We sailed on the ship John D."  --they sing "I feel so
>>break-up, I
>>wanna go home"   When I heard the Beach Boys version not so long ago
>>they changed
>>it to "I feel so broke up" which makes more sense to me-- almost in
>>the sense
>>we're talking about in "stove up"-- can anyone enlighten me on "feel so
>>break-up?"  why break and not broke?
>>
>>DF Coye
>>The College of NJ
>
>"The Ship 'John B.'" is a folksong of Caribbean origin - Jamaican, I
>think, but maybe not - and uses some form of Caribbean English. Is it
>true that the Beach Boys sing "broke up"? I've always heard it as
>"break up." My mistake, I guess.
>
>-Wilson Gray

It's actually "The Sloop John B." rather than "The Ship".  I was
pretty sure that the standard Beach Boys' recording of the song,
presumably adapted by Brian Wilson, did indeed have it "I feel so
break up", not "broke up", but a google search confirms Dale's
memory, not Wilson's and mine.  I'm puzzled, but resigned.   Maybe
they actually sang and recorded it both ways on different occasions?

Larry