Friday Sessions #105: ‘You gotta shove’ – ‘It’s so hard’ John Lennon

If you wanna test your native English, you gotta listen to this week’s Friday Session. John Lennon’s track ‘It’s so hard,’ is telling us that we gotta live, love, eat, drink…. and today’s lyric: ‘You gotta shove.’

The verb ‘to shove’ is an alternative way of saying ‘push’ or ‘push through.’ But we are focusing in on the connected speech element ‘gotta.’

Gotta (Got to) – “I’ve gotta go now, see you tomorrow.”
Gonna (Going to) – “Are you gonna come back later?”
Wanna (Want to) – “Do you wanna meet next week?”

Connected speech is the term used to describe ‘the sound that is created when 2 or more words are combined.’ I gotta confess that I always used to tell everyone connected speech shouldn’t be used in professional, business English. Until I realised that although these sounds are never written (obviously you should never use them in emails, reports, contracts….,) they are actually a very normal, and efficient way of speaking, and most natives use many different variations.

You will hear examples of connected speech everywhere from formal business meetings to informal / social contexts and especially in song lyrics. You can also listen and look out for them in subtitles, if you are watching films and series, and you will probably find them in many novels too.

In short, don’t use ‘gotta’, ‘gonna’, ‘wanna’ and other examples in written form, but it’s normal to use a few variations when speaking. Are you gonna try? I know you wanna!

Lyrics:

You gotta live
You gotta love
You gotta be somebody
You gotta shove
But it’s so hard, it’s really hard
Sometimes I feel like going down

You gotta eat
You gotta drink
You gotta feel something
You gotta worry
But it’s so hard, it’s really hard
Sometimes I feel like going down

But when it’s good It’s really good
And when I hold you in my arms, baby
Sometimes I feel like going down

You gotta run
You gotta hide
You gotta keep your woman satisfied
But it’s so hard, it’s really hard
Sometimes I feel like going down

John Lennon/ It’s so hard (Live in NYC)