Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2014 June 21

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June 21

Life goes on, bra

The refrain to The Beatles' Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da goes Ob-la-di, ob-la-da, life goes on, bra. What does "bra" mean here? I doubt it means a brassiere. I've always imagined it's the Swedish language word bra "good, well", but that can't be right, as The Beatles weren't a Swedish band. Does it have some other meaning or is it just a nonsense word? JIP | Talk 13:41, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

Here in the US, it can mean "bro", as in (figurative) "brother", but I'm not sure if that slang would have been present in the Beatles' time. StuRat (talk) 14:11, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

The article states 'The tag line "ob-la-di, ob-la-da, life goes on, bra" was an expression used by Nigerian conga player Jimmy Scott-Emuakpor, an acquaintance of McCartney.' if that helps anyone. Nanonic (talk) 14:22, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

Expressions like that probably mean about the same thing as "do do do down do be do down down, comma comma, down do be do down down, etc." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:42, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

See "Non-lexical vocables in music".—Wavelength (talk) 15:51, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

You may also ask what Ob-La-Di and Ob-La-Da mean, too. Mingmingla (talk) 18:09, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

Here is McCartney's own explanation. Stu and Nanonic basically combined to give the correct answer. --Jayron32 19:57, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

All well and good, except it doesn't explain the last lines, "If you want some fun / Take Ob-La-Di-Bla-Da" followed by a "Thank you!" and giggling on the fade-out. I always took that to mean they were passing the pipe around, hence ob-la-di etc. being some sort of drug euphemism. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:07, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

Obviously they were discussing the theme music for an advertising campaign for a new product: Life Goes On bras. :-P Clarityfiend (talk) 23:37, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

But how would they compare to Tijuana Bras? - ¡Ouch! (^{hurt me} / _{more pain}) 06:33, 25 June 2014 (UTC)