I was driving along and thinking about Timothee Chalamet‘s Bob Dylan in James Mangold‘s A Complete Unknown, and right on cue my random-ass iTunes library started playing “She Belongs To Me.” And I began singing along and it felt really great, but when it came to the third stanza a certain memory kicked in.

The lyrics go as follows: “She never stumbles, she’s got no place to fall / She never stumbles, she got no place to fall / She’s nobody’s child, the law can’t touch her at all.”

All my life I’ve been of the firm opinion that the last line should read as follows: “She’s nobody’s child, ma can’t touch her at all.”

We all know what and who “Ma” is. She’s the enforcer, the sheriff, the take-no-shit Ma Barker…a ramrod authority figure from way back…the “Egyptian ring” woman’s mother, a voice of bluster, a proverbial butch boss, Cody Jarret’s doting and devotional “ma!”, etc.

The law may wag its finger and say this or that, but “ma” is the matronly dictator whom people fear the most. (I certainly feared my own whip-cracking mom, Nancy.) And yet “ma” can’t touch this woman at all. Talk about formidable.