If I Had a Million Dollars
Bare Naked Ladies: If I Had a Million Dollars
Quiz by Sharon Michiko Yoneda
"I'd buy you a house."
"I'd buy you furniture for your house. Maybe a nice chesterfield or an ottoman."
"Well, I'd buy you a K-Car. A nice reliant automobile."
"I'd build a tree fort in our yard."
"Maybe we can put like a little tiny fridge in there somewhere."
"Well, I'd buy you a fur coat."
"Well, I'd buy you an exotic pet. Yep, like a llama or an emu."
"Well, I'd buy you John Merrick's remains. Ooh, all them crazy elephant bones."
"That's right, all the fanciest-, Dijon ketchup, mm, mm"
"Well, I'd buy you a green dress."
"Well, I'd buy you some art. A Picasso or a Garfunkel."
"Well, I'd buy you a monkey. Haven't you always wanted a monkey?"
songwriters: Steven Page and Ed Robertson of Barenaked Ladies
date released: 2012 by Barenaked Ladies
*Teacher's alert: Yes, the present unreal conditional is one of the hardest grammar constructions to teach, and in the past tense, it becomes a nightmare. By many examples of hypothetical situations, it can be done, but it needs a lot of repetition and re-enforcement for retention and usage.
This song is almost tedious in its constant repetition of the unreal conditional, but it seems to work for students to hear the If+S+had over and over repeatedly. One of the Ladies must have been an ESL teacher.
In any event, that has been my experience in the classroom. There are other, less dense, tunes, such as "If I Were a Carpenter...and you were a lady" (Tim Hardin: songwriter), that would be easier on the ear.
Barenaked Ladies is a Canadian rock band formed in 1988 in the Toronto suburb of Scarborough, Ontario. . They reached mainstream success in Canada when their debut with Reprise Records, Gordon, featuring the singles "If I Had $1000000,