Monday, June 10, 2019

coordination - "...We can only lose, and our love become a funeral pyre." - distributed modal verb or subjunctive?

From The Doors, Light My Fire. The lines are:
"Try now, we can only lose
And our love become a funeral pyre."



I would never hold their lyrics up as great writing, but I have always wondered exactly what this means. My understanding is:



"Try now, we can only lose
And our love (can only) become a funeral pyre."



So using a conjunction to link a different subject and a different main verb sharing the same modal verb. Like, e.g.,



"The machine would stop and the bell ring." or
"I will go and he replace me."




Which don't sound like things anyone would say. I have, however, heard things like:



I need to nod my head and you to hit it. or
I want to eat and you to sleep.



Or is it a form of subjunctive? But it doesn't seem to fit any other example of a subjunctive.
As a native English speaker, for many years I just understood he was saying "...and our love (can only) become a funeral pyre," as in, that's the worst that could happen, which is better than not trying any sex or drugs at all. But I can't come up with a single other example of a conjunction being used to distribute a modal between two different subjects with two different main verbs.

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