> Sandy Denny > Songs > Who Knows Where The Time Goes?

A guide for independent study of the lyrics of the song
Who Knows Where The Time Goes? (Sandy Denny, 1967)

50 multiple-choice questions
for third-year students of English as a Second Language

David Maisel < dmaisel@berklee.edu>
Berklee College of Music
Boston, Massachusetts

Time allotment and format: On each of four or five days spread over a period of two or three weeks: 20 minutes with a partner followed by 40 to 50 minutes of homework.

Note to native speakers of English: Reading all the way to the end of this guide in one sitting at a seemingly comfortable pace makes the questions considerably harder and less useful than they are at a studying pace. Highly literate native speakers of English long familiar with the song who tried to answer each question soon after the previous one scored lower on the questions than ESL students who were paced for contemplation. They were slowed down not only by the days between the sections of the questions but also by their limited English skills. I suppose that even for the easier questions they needed to refer back to the lyrics, thinking them over again and again.

The Song’s First Third

Where are the birds going to?
1. the nests where they left their hungry young ones
2. the place where males and females become couples with each other
3. the home where their parents and grandparents have long been waiting for them to return
4. a warmer climate, where they can stay alive during the coming season
Where are the birds going to?
1. the nests where they left their hungry young ones
2. the place where males and females become couples with each other
3. the home where their parents and grandparents have long been waiting for them to return
4. a warmer climate, where they can stay alive during the coming season
How do the birds know that it is now the time for them to go?
1. They are born with an instinct (a kind of natural calendar that automatically tells them how to live successfully).
2. After living in this place with their parents for many years, they decided that now they are old enough to leave it, to find a place where they can make a new home of their own.
3. The oldest birds remember the correct date.
4. Now that they are very old, they know that the time has come for them to go to the place where they will soon die peacefully.
The birds are (probably)
1. all flying together at a slow, relaxed speed.
2. all flying together at a fast, hurried speed.
3. each flying at a different speed.
How long, approximately, will it take the birds to reach their destination?
1. four hours
2. two days
3. three weeks
Who is in front of the fire?
1. people
2. birds that don’t migrate each year
3. birds that are tired
The fire’s location is (probably)
1. a beach
2. a house
3. a forest
4. a church
Why is there this fire?
1. It was started accidentally.
2. People started it in order to cook on it.
3. People started it for warmth.
4. Birds started it in order to see their flight path.
You heard a version of the song that goes, “Before the winter fire / we’ll still be dreaming.” The dreamers in front of the fire are
1. certainly in deep sleep.
2. possibly daydreaming. (To daydream means to relax and dream, usually while sitting, while being half awake and half asleep or more than half awake, either at night or during the day.)
3. certainly awake, managing the fire with their full attention.
4. dreaming that they too can fly.
The dreaming in front of the fire is in contrast to (is pointing to a difference from) the birds’
1. hurrying.
2. singing.
3. staying with their families.
The contrast that the previous question asked about (the contrast between the dreaming and the birds’ present behavior) is one example of the fact that
1. some creatures are more uncomfortable when they feel cold than others are.
2. some creatures can protect themselves from winter’s discomfort more easily than others can.
3. some creatures care more about their family’s comfort than others do.
4. some creatures are better than others.
“I do not count the time” is a poetic way to say:
1. I get paid not by the hour but by the amount of work that I finish.
2. I don’t think about exactly how many seconds still remain before the clock reaches the next minute mark.
3. I’m not worrying about or thinking about any scheduled or unscheduled changes that may come in the future.
4. I don’t know which day of the week it is today.

The Song’s Second Third

The shore is where the land meets the
1. ocean.
2. birds.
3. sky.
4. highway.
A soldier who becomes a deserter is one who secretly escapes from his
1. army.
2. gun.
3. country.
4. girlfriend.
A deserter is someone who had earlier promised not to
1. fight.
2. leave.
3. stay.
4. forget.
In this context in the song, the word “deserted” is a past participle (a specific form of a verb) that is not used (as it usually is used) as a verb. What part of speech is it used as here?
1. noun
2. pronoun
3. adverb
4. adjective
A fickle boyfriend is one who likes his girlfriend one week, then likes someone else instead the next week, but then soon goes back to liking his girlfriend; then on some following week he finds someone else to like; and so on. Who are the shore’s fickle friends?
1. The birds who escape
2. The birds who don’t escape
3. The ocean’s waves
4. The speaker and the speaker’s lover
Saying that the shore’s friends are fickle is a strange thing to say. Why is it strange to say this?
1. They have always been loyal to the shore.
2. They never promised to be loyal to the shore.
3. The shore wants them to be disloyal.
4. The shore is more disloyal to its friends than they are to it.
Why does the speaker say that the shore is sad and deserted?
Choose two answers.
1. The shore told the speaker that it feels sad that it has been unfairly deserted by its friends.
2. To the sad speaker, the shore looks sad.
3. To the shore’s fickle friends, it looks sad.
4. If it could feel, it might be sad about being left.
5. The speaker feels guilty for escaping the shore.
When the speaker says that the shore’s friends are fickle, the speaker is personifying the shore (poetically changing and transforming the shore into a person). In this personification, which characteristics of a human is the speaker imagining that the shore has?
1. emotions (feelings) and expectations
2. military problems
3. commitments (responsibilities that a person has voluntarily chosen)
“Ah, but then you know” means “However” and “On the other hand” and “If you are honest and open-minded, you’ll admit and agree that the attitude that was expressed in the preceding (last) words is weakened or neutralized or overcome or replaced or erased by awareness of (and acceptance of) the thought that is expressed in the next words.” In this context in the song, the awareness (or acceptance) that “it’s time for them to go” erases and replaces and heals the resentful (angry and disappointed) attitude that is expressed by the word “fickle.”

In other words, what is meant by “Ah, but then you know it’s time for them to go” is
1. “You don’t need to cry that someone treated you unfairly. They only did what they had to do.”
2. “It’s also time for you to go. Hurry up.”
3. “Stop feeling sorry for the people whom you are hurting. The birds don’t apologise to the shore for leaving it.”
When the speaker says, “But I will still be here; I have no thought of leaving,” the word “but” means “unlike x.” Unlike what or whom?
1. the birds
2. the shore
3. the speaker’s lover
When the speaker says, “But I will still be here; I have no thought of leaving,” whom could the speaker be addressing (speaking to), comforting or thinking of with these words?
1. the shore’s fickle friends
2. the speaker’s lover
3. the song’s public audience (the strangers who listen to the recording of the song)

The Song’s Third Third

“I know it will be so” means “I know that the situation will continue to be the same as this,” which here means that the speaker expects that the situation will be the same as was described in
1. the previous sentence.
2. all the previous sentences of this text.
3. the following sentence.
4. all the following sentences of this text.
“Till it is time to go” means
1. until my love leaves this world (dies) or I do, because no change except death could ever cause either of us to leave the other.
2. until a time comes when either I or my love needs or chooses to leave the other.
3. either of the above two choices is a possible interpretation of this line, even though they are very seriously different from each other; and the song’s writer might have meant for this line to include this difficult confusion and uncertainty.
The speaker’s faith (brave belief) that the birds and the spring and the summer will return (after the long, difficult winter) reminds us that:
1. The main cause of happiness and sadness in life is the weather.
2. After all bad changes in life come good ones.
3. When bad changes are happening we often forget that good changes are still possible later.
4. Life is approximately half bad and half good.
In the sentence “So come the storms of winter and then the birds in spring again”, the verb’s tense can be heard as either the habitual (repeating) present (“Winter comes every year”) or the imperative (“Let it come!”). If the tense is the habitual present, “So” means “Similarly,” and with this sentence the speaker is
1. describing something.
2. forgetting something.
3. complaining about something.
4. demanding something.
If the tense of “come” is the imperative, “So” means either “Similarly,” or “Because this is the situation,” and the speaker is
1. complaining about something.
2. welcoming something.
3. remembering something.
4. describing something.
Whether the verb’s tense is the imperative or the habitual present, the sentence has basically the same attitude, which is:
1. The seasons of the year change; birds disappear and reappear; people disappear and sometimes reappear; people can’t expect or demand that love will be permanent; people can hope that the loss of love will not be permanent; when the loss of love is permanent, it can be replaced by new love of someone or something; love can continue until death and after death; and all of these are natural events that we either accept as being parts of life or that we deny (refuse to accept); and accepting them is more realistic, more satisfying and more elevating than denying them is.
2. No to the above choice.
In the sentence “I am not alone while my love is near me” the phrase “my love” can mean
1. a person who exists anywhere in the world, no matter how far away from the speaker, who shares love with the speaker.
2. a person who shares love with the speaker and who is present (in the same place) with the speaker.
3. a thought or memory of a person who shared love with the speaker in the past.
In the later sentence “Who knows how my love grows?” the phrase “my love” can mean
1. a boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife or other person whom the speaker loves and who loves the speaker.
2. the love that the speaker feels for that person.
3. a feeling or attitude that can exist inside the speaker even if no person is physically present, even if no person exists anywhere in the world who shares the speaker’s love and maybe even if there is no specific person whom the speaker remembers or thinks of with love; there’s always plenty to love, for example: Snow, sandals, sleep, fireflies, footbridges, trains, baseball, birds, bells, compact disks, the quiet, conversation, 5 AM, the sun, potatoes, onions, toast, tea, blue, pale blue, sky blue, navy blue, wedgwood blue, gray blue, gray, fast cars and bikes, slow dancers, a great story or joke, going shopping, going fishing, finally remembering or forgetting, echoing, entering, honoring, arguing, uttering, ordering, offering, answering, anything.
4. the speaker’s child.
5. the love that the speaker feels for his/her child.
6. any of the above.
If, when we read the first of the two sentences that include the phrase “my love,” we understand the word “love” to mean what it seems to mean in the second of those two sentences, then the meaning of the first sentence is:
1. The presence of one loving person can save another from the feeling of loneliness.
2. The existence of one loving person can save another from the feeling of loneliness.
3. A person can be saved from the feeling of loneliness even if s/he is completely alone in the world, as long as s/he’s got the necessary attitude.

The Song’s Art

The shore is an appropriate place for the writer to choose and picture (to mentally see and paint) as a scene of this song because the shore - not in this song, but in real life - is an empty place where
1. people watch birds flying away for the winter.
2. people have said Goodbye and boarded ships to go far away for a long time.
3. people on vacation enjoy singing with friends.
4. while swimming, people’s bodies can feel the freedom in water that birds feel while flying in air.

This is Q. 25 rewritten:

Why did the writer choose to use the story of birds’ annual migration as part of the song’s story? She did this because she wanted to convert (to change; to transform) her song’s theme (its main idea, topic or message) into a picture and a story. The picture of the birds and the spring and the summer all returning to the shore after the winter reminds us of what? (What is the songwriter’s theme?)
(Choose from Q. 25’s four choices:)
1. The main cause of happiness and sadness in life is the weather.
2. After all bad changes in life come good ones.
3. When bad changes are happening we often forget that good changes are still possible later.
4. Life is approximately half bad and half good.

When we hear only the song’s first third, the song’s topic seems to be
1. the contrast between birds’ need to migrate and people’s freedom from this need.
2. the unnecessary bitterness that is caused by always understanding a partner’s leaving as an unfair act of disloyalty instead of accepting it as a change that may be natural and necessary.
3. the speaker’s transcendance of (successful inner fight to rise above) the fear of being left alone.
When we then hear the song’s second third, the song’s topic seems to be
(Choose from Q. 33’s three choices:)
1. the contrast between birds’ need to migrate and people’s freedom from this need.
2. the unnecessary bitterness that is caused by always understanding a partner’s leaving as an unfair act of disloyalty instead of accepting it as a change that may be natural and necessary.
3. the speaker’s transcendance of (successful inner fight to rise above) the fear of being left alone.
The topic that we hear as the song’s topic from the song’s second third is
1. more unpleasant than the topic that we hear as the song’s topic from the song’s first third.
2. more pleasant than the topic that we hear as the song’s topic from the song’s first third.
In the second third, by picturing the shore and how it is left alone instead of directly showing a person who is left alone, the writer
1. upsets sad listeners by making them think that sadness is felt not only by people but also by sand and water.
2. uses poetic charm to prevent the song’s topic from darkening the song’s mood.
In the second third, when we understand that the shore is the song’s substitute for a person, we don’t yet understand that the person who is facing the possibility of being left by a loved one
1. is the speaker’s lover.
2. is not a specific person but one who represents people in general.
3. is a specific person whose identity hasn’t yet been revealed.
When the song’s first third announces that the speaker and the speaker’s fellow dreamer won’t leave here, the question that this announcement answers isn’t the one that is more relevant to the speaker’s interest, which is the question of
1. whether one of them will leave the other.
2. what they will dream about in front of the fire.
When the song’s second third announces that the speaker won’t leave, the question that this announcement answers is not the question that is more relevant to the speaker’s interest, which is the question of
1. how long the shore will await the birds’ return.
2. whether the speaker’s loved one will leave.
The first third says some people won’t leave; the second third says one specific person won’t. By making this change, the writer is
1. moving a little closer to the song’s real topic by talking about whether one person plans to leave another, but is pointing our attention at the wrong person (not at the person whose plans really matter to the speaker) and she’s pointing there to keep the song’s topic from darkening the song’s mood.
2. showing that, unlike birds whose actions are determined only by selfish instinct and the requirements of survival, the speaker is a human and will therefore always act unselfishly, according to the requirements of morality, loyalty and sympathy.
In the song’s final (third) third, the question that the speaker faces is the song’s real question, which until now has been avoided; it is not “Why are the birds leaving?” and is not “Is the shore sad?” and is not (as in the first third) “Will we leave?” and is not (as in the second third) “Will I leave?” but is
1. “Will we be left?”
2. “Will I be left?”
The song’s answer to that last question is
1. “No; never.”
2. “Maybe.”
3. “Yes; forever.”
This question is based on the reasoning of the previous ten questions.

The song has no fourth section. We can guess that if there were a fourth section, and that if in it the song continued further in the direction of the second and third sections’ progress, the unpleasantness and heaviness of the speaker’s burden would probably
1. continue to become more obvious (visible; easy to see); for example, the speaker might let us know that something recently happened (maybe a disloyal act, maybe a serious medical diagnosis) that gave reason to feel insecure about the future presence of the speaker’s loved one.
2. be forgotten; or be happily ended by some good news; or be re-hidden by the writer behind poetic imagery (e.g., scenes of the birds’ flight and their new home, a picture of the wood flaming in the fireplace, the ocean’s waves moving away from the shore) in order to stop us from guessing that the speaker has reason to feel insecure and afraid.
Even when, in the final third, the unpleasant real question is finally shown to us and is finally faced by the speaker, the heaviness of the potential future loss is lightened by
1. the anger, self-pity, childishness, hopelessness, negativity, fear and weakness that the speaker shows while facing this unpleasant possibility.
2. the courage (bluff?), optimism (bluff?), philosophicalness, imagination and lyricism that the speaker shows in facing this unpleasant possibility.
This question is based on all the questions in this (Art) section.

Why does the writer only gradually, incompletely and indirectly show the song’s sad topic and mood and the speaker’s underlying anxiety?

Choose any number of the following answers. They are all only guesses, interpretations and attitudes - not facts that can be known to be correct or incorrect.
1. She was from England, where people have the idea that showing courage and style when you are under stress is a necessity and a religious virtue.
2. Readers and writers of literature enjoy detective work, drama, subtlety and surprise.
3. Spilling your fears to a psychotherapist or trusted friend is one thing; singing & poetry is another.
4. Art prefers to be doctor rather than patient or sickness; it treats pains but tries not to be one.
5. The most accurately-aimed, sure and total cure for anything very bad: Find its accidental beauty.
6. A strategy for retaking power when facing absolute powerlessness is to craft a powerful, disciplined reaction to it, e.g., an attitude that can be sung.

The Song’s Title

The song’s title is strange; its meaning is mysterious and confusing even to a native speaker of English. This title is a rhetorical question. More examples of rhetorical questions:

“Who knows God’s plan?”
“Well, that’s life; what can you do?”
“Who the hell do you think you are?”
“How could you do this to me?”
“What can I say?”

A rhetorical question is a question that is not really a question; the speaker asks it without expecting or wanting an answer; what the speaker wants is to show that there is no simple answer. (Rhetoric is the clever use of language style to make listeners or readers change their minds or to make them understand something that they can’t understand or don’t want to, or to entertain other people or oneself.)

Someone would rhetorically say, “Who knows where my paycheck goes?” if s/he
1. needed to know whether it should be deposited in a savings account or a checking account.
2. suspected that one of the bank’s employees was stealing part of it and s/he wanted to investigate this weekly crime.
3. was surprised to see that every week its money hasn’t lasted as long as s/he expected it would.
Someone would rhetorically say, “Who knows where all the ice cream goes?” if s/he
1. wanted to know whether to put it in the fridge.
2. noticed that its container usually becomes empty faster than s/he expected it would.
3. wanted to find out which parts of the human body receive its milk, sugar, fat and other ingredients after digestion.
Those two rhetorical questions about money and food sound normal, common and clear; we understand them easily; but the title is strange - because this invisible thing which we call “time” doesn’t logically fit in this question. We sadly find that our time, like money and ice cream, has suddenly disappeared when we thought we still had a big supply of it; unlike time, your money always goes to someone and sometimes it comes back to you, and food gets left over, maybe re-fried the next day, or digested into a mess that some other creatures can enjoy, none of it wasted; but Time - after it is spent or missed, any piece of time is forever lost to the world and you; this lost minute can never be replaced with other amounts of time, not even if you find extra hours of it somewhere.

So, “time” doesn’t make sense in the song’s question because it (time)
1. cannot be divided into units of measurement (as money can be divided into dollars and cents and food can into pounds, ounces and grams).
2. is worth more than money.
3. doesn’t go from one place to another and it cannot be stored in any container; it doesn’t exist.
The song’s title is a poetic way of saying:
1. Does anyone know what time and year it is?
2. Less time has passed lately than I thought had.
3. No one can know when to expect a surprise.
4. Where is the place where life is not too busy?

The Song’s Public Audience

If you met these eight people at a bar and had on you two copies of this song, which two people would you give it to?
No answer is wrong; just choose.
1. an Alaskan who gets snow nine months a year
2. a scientist studying annual migration of birds
3. a man whose business recently went bankrupt
4. a woman still mourning for her grandparents
5. a man avoiding remarriage for fear of divorce
6. someone from far away who regrets moving here
7. a woman who shoveled snow to clear a parking space that was soon taken by another driver
8. someone who plants flowers every day of April