“Dear Judge Vic, Knowing what a stickler you are for proper word usage and grammar, I had to write …,” the note began. “Oh no,” I thought, remembering the ribbing I received recently about the lie-lay-lain rule.

But this writer had a different angle.

“…I had to write about Kathy’s Song, the Simon & Garfunkel hit.” I remembered the tune. It was on the Sounds of Silence album that I spent hours listening to as a 14-year-old.

In Kathy’s Song, written by Paul Simon and released originally on an album dubbed The Paul Simon Songbook in England, the letter writer notes there is the poignant lyric “There but for the grace of you go I.”

Wracking my brain, I recalled the words. And then looked them up. My correspondent was correct. In context, someone, presumably Kathy, is thinking of, or perhaps writing to, an unnamed person miles away. And, wrapping things up, she says, “The only truth I know is you/ … I know that I am like the rain/ There but for the grace of you go I.”

It’s fair, I think, to say that these words are evocative of a fairly common religious adage: “There but for the grace of God go I.” So, perhaps a theological discussion might ensue regarding Kathy’s relationship with the unnamed one with whom she is communing.

But that’s not where the writer was going.

“Isn’t it strange that the late, great Eva Cassidy, in her otherwise fabulous cover of Simon’s song, said, ‘There before the grace of you go I.’ Not “but for” but “before.” How do you account for this?”

Skeptic that I am, I pulled up the Eva Cassidy version of the song online. Sure enough, she says what the writer says she says. And, in Googling the song lyrics, I saw that one is as likely to come up with “before” as “but for” in looking for those lyrics.

How do I account for it? I guess the better inquiry is why would I feel a need to account for it? I suppose the sad thing is that a host of people who heard her and knew of the error did nothing to effect a change.

Cassidy died of melanoma in 1996. Her Time after Time album, with Kathy’s Song as the No. 1 track, was not released until 2000. And her cover of Paul Simon’s work is a dandy!

Let’s face it, folks. Sometimes even really good singers get something wrong and, the error notwithstanding, art is the result.

In his 1993 cover of Over the Rainbow, Israel Kamakawiwo’ole blew the lyrics six ways from Sunday. Yet, that version (in a medley with What a Wonderful World) may now be the second only to Judy Garland’s version in The Wizard of Oz, in terms of popularity. Ironically, the third most popular version is probably Eva Cassidy’s from 1992.

These are the only two instances I can think of where a really good cover of a song misstates the lyrics. Can you think of any? If so, email me, please.

Remember, what I’m talking about here is different from a Mondegreen, which I think I covered in a column many years ago. But, now that I’ve raised the topic, I’ll probably tackle it again next week.

Vic Fleming is a district court judge in Little Rock, Ark., where he also teaches at the William H. Bowen School of Law. Contact him at [email protected].