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grammar - Carry we who die in battle


A song by the heavy metal band Manowar includes these lines:



Carry we who die in battle


Over land and sea



The "we" sounds wrong for me. I'd use "us" in this sentence. A quick google search didn't show any similar constructions with "we".


The "we" is a rather long-drawn sound in the song, so my best guess is that this wouldn't have worked with the sharp, short "us". But it is really completely wrong, or is there some way to justify this usage?


Note that all band members are born in the US, so they are native speakers.



Answer



There is no way to justify we there according to conventional rules if it is supposed to be the object of carry. It should be us:



Carry us who die in battle over land and sea.



The reason why this writer mistakenly used we is probably as follows. The relative pronoun who is the subject of the relative clause, and who refers back to we, so a hint of "subjectivity" might cling to we as well, in the subconscious of the writer. But this is not done in conventional English.


What Janus says below could be another reason: there are some well known phrases where both the antecedent and the relative pronoun are the subjects of their respective clauses (main clause and relative clause), in which case we who would be correct.


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