Sufjan Stevens Gives Miley Cyrus A Grammar Lesson and Some Props

Indie darling Sufjan Stevens has decided to jump into the overcrowded Miley Cyrus maelstrom, but in a rather unusual way – with a grammar lesson.  "One particular line causes concern: I been laying in this bed all night long,” Stevens wrote. "Miley, technically speaking, you’ve been LYING, not LAYING, an irregular verb form that should only be used when there’s an object, i.e. “I been laying my tired booty on this bed all night long.”  The lesson didn't stop there.

"Surely you’ve heard of Present Perfect Continuous Tense (I HAVE BEEN LYING in this bed all night long [hopefully getting some beauty sleep?]). It’s a weird, equivocal, almost purgatorial tense, not quite present, not quite past, not quite here, not quite there. Somewhere in between. I feel that way all the time. It kind of sucks. But I have a feeling your “present perfect continuous” involves a lot more excitement than mine," Stevens wrote on his blog.

Then comes the sincerly delivered compliment:

"Anyway, doesn’t that also sum up your career right now? Present. Perfect. Continuous. And Tense. Intense? Girl, you work it like Mike Tyson. Miley, I love you because you’re the Queen, grammatically and anatomically speaking. And you’re the hottest cake in the pan. Don’t ever grow old. Live brightly before your fire fades into total darkness. XXOO Sufjan"