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Reader question: Please explain this title of a song: “Your love don’t take a backseat to nothing”. My comments: “Don’t” and “nothing” are slang terms for “doesn’t” and “anything”. It means your love don’t, sorry, doesn’t take a backseat to anything. In other words, your love is the most important thing. “Take a backseat” is a great phrase to learn here. It is, presumably, derived from car driving. The backseat refers to seats in the back row, in comparison with, for example, the driver’s seat, which is in the front. The driver, of course, is in control of the car. While sitting in the back, you can do nothing in terms of steering the car from place to place. Hence, from this derives the terms “driving seat” and “backseat”. If you’re in the driving seat, you’re in a leading position. If you take backseat on the other hand, you give up control, assuming a less active role. Aged Chinese officials, for example, often take a backseat by assuming a position on what is sometimes called an advisory committee. Seemingly less important, this advisory role gives them an opportunity to keep throwing their weight around, or, in officialese or bureaucrat-speak, it gives them a continued chance to serve the people. Backseat or no backseat, if you want to meddle, of course, you always can. I’ve often seen wives shouting out orders to their husbands sitting in the driver’s seat, giving out directions left, right and center, and nonstop. | 
