McCartney Deliberately Added Anadiplosis

The Capture

Forsyth, on a British Library exhibit of Paul McCartney's lyric manuscripts: I was able to see on the original manuscript that he changed the lyrics to put that anadiplosis in. So he wrote all the lyrics and then he went back and deliberately put that in. Now I don't know if Paul McCartney even knows what the word anadiplosis is. But he knows how to use it.¹

The case is Here There and Everywhere. The first-draft lyric did not have the anadiplosis chain (last word of one line = first word of next: here / here making each day of the year). The revised lyric did. McCartney went back into the draft and inserted the figure deliberately. He did not know the figure's name.

This is the strongest primary-source case I've seen for the claim that great writers use the rhetorical figures intuitively, recognize when a lyric is missing one, and add it in revision. The figure-using is not unconscious. The figure-naming is. The two layers are independent.

The Live Wire

• First wire (obvious): Great writers use rhetorical figures even without knowing the technical names.
• Second wire (deeper): The cognitive recognition that a line is better with the figure is operationally independent of the meta-cognitive knowledge of what the figure is called. McCartney has the recognition. He doesn't have the name. The recognition is sufficient for the craft-decision; the name is a separate layer used only for teaching the craft to others.
• Third wire (uncomfortable, optional): If recognition is sufficient and naming is teaching-scaffolding, then the entire enterprise of teaching writing through named-figures may be an inefficient route to the underlying recognition. There may be a direct training path that bypasses the names — practice writing many lyrics and learning to recognize when a line is missing structure. McCartney got the recognition without ever being taught the names. Forsyth's cheat-sheet endorsement is the partial acknowledgement: keep the cheat-sheet, but use your own names; the Greek names don't matter.

The Connection It Makes

This spark touches anadiplosis — clause chain directly — the McCartney case is the canonical primary-source demonstration for that page. It also touches Forsyth rhetorical-figures methodology as a whole — the McCartney case is the proof-of-concept that supports the whole methodology. And it touches false memory via rhetoric mechanism — both demonstrate that rhetorical figures operate at a level below conscious craft-naming.

What It Could Become

Essay seed: Are There Comprehensive Studies of Revision-Toward-Rhetorical-Figures in Major Writers' Manuscripts? — the McCartney case is one data point. How many other major writers' manuscript-archives show the same pattern? A systematic study of revision-direction across lyricists (McCartney, Lennon, Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Cohen) and prose-writers (Hemingway, Carver, James) would significantly strengthen the rhetorical-figures-as-cognitive-receptors thesis with manuscript evidence. The piece would propose the study and identify the archives where it could be done.

Open question: Already filed to META as #3 — Are there comprehensive studies of revision-toward-rhetorical-figures in major writers' manuscripts?

Collision candidate: Forsyth's claim (great writers intuitively reach for the figures) versus the contemporary writing-pedagogy norm (don't deploy named techniques; write authentically). The two positions can be tested against the McCartney case: the great writer reaches for the figure on revision; the pedagogy that warns against named techniques is partially contradicted by this evidence. Worth a collision stub if a second source on writing-pedagogy norms confirms the tension.

Promotion Criteria

[x] A second source touches this independently (Forsyth provides the case; the prior Karlsson/Whyte/Macfarlane tradition that emphasizes authentic-voice-emergence provides the contrasting position) [ ] Has survived two sessions without weakening [x] The Live Wire second framing holds [x] Has a falsifiable core claim (the recognition-vs-naming distinction is empirically testable in writers' manuscripts)

Footnotes