Aug 032012
I was listening to Stevie Wonder’s “Living for the City” earlier today, while driving from Laguna to San Francisco, primarily through the kind of amazing California nowhere land that I-5 takes drivers. Hearing Stevie repeatedly pronounce the song’s key word as Cit-Ay I got to thinking of that horrible Journey song that pronounces the word the same way, and the possibility for a Last Man Standing. Then I realized there are probably a dozen other words that are only pronounced a certain way in song, a way that no one would ever pronounce the words in everyday speech. Then I realized that you can help budding rock singers identify and learn the proper rock pronunciation of these words. Go!
First one which springs to mind: “I’ll come to your emotional res-CUE.” Particularly galling because it’s repeated over and over, seeing as how it’s the song title…
(First comment, nerves twitching, please be gentle, yamma yamma)
Liam Gallagher is fond of adding extra syllable to words, especially those that end in “tion”. In Cigarettes and Alcohol he adds “she” when pronouncing words like imagination, action and even sunshine. So we get imaginasheeon, actsheeon, and sunsheeine.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaeLKhRnkhQ
Off topic: I have a problem with the word City in lyrics in general. You just know that the next line is going to end with “Pretty” 80% of the time and either “Pity” or “Gritty” the other 20%. I realize other words have equally predictable rhymes but this one really irks me for some reason.
Also, welcome aboard Klepsie.
Whenever possible, singers should try to adopt an exaggerated “bayou” accent to lend authenticity to their homespun tales. e.g. “Big wheels keep on TOY-ning, Proud Mary keep on BOY-ning”
I think there could probably be an entire guide to pronouncing words the way Fogerty does. The Phonetic Phogerty?
I’m going to have to listen to some Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly today as research. As a sidenote, Chuck Berry was a master of taking a name or a phrase and switching it around to make the line better(?): in Brown Eyed Handsome Man we’re introduced to the “Milo de Venus” and are informed that the it’s “two three the count” in a baseball game.
There’s no “g” in “darlin” and all the Mickey Mouse club alums have a phony way of pronouncing “baby,” though I’m sure they don’t really talk that way at the mall.
In response to CDM, I’m sure we’ve talked about bad, common rhymes before – phone/alone is another. But the one that bother me the most is “leave me by myself/put me on the shelf.” Nobody ever referred to dumping or abandoning a person as “putting them on the shelf” except in songs with that rhyme.
String debut! Welcome aboard.
I remember driving in the car with my dad and Artful Dodger came on with their big Cleveland Smash Hit, It’s Over. Being 14 and having the album, I was excited to hear something I owned played on the radio so I asked dad to turn it up, which he did. That porbably threw him out of whatever it was he was thinking about while driving me to swim practice, and when the got to the line, “Can’t ya see that it’s over, you’re breakin’ my Ort” my dad started laughing and asked me what his ort was.
When Jagger sings “My heart’s beating louder than a big bass drum,” he mispronounces “bass,” making it sound like he’s talking about the fish, rather than the percussive instrument.
… and I can remember my old hound dog bawkin…”
Alicia Bridges on I Love The Nightlife talking about how she wants some “act-shone”.
As Seinfeld effectively mocked; Witch-ay Woman by the Eagles.
Gallagher is copping Ray Davies’ act in “Session Man” who is a chord pro gresh she an, and a top mu si she an.
Strong, that is…
Good spot! Hmm, like the brothers Gallagher never copped a move from anybody before.
If you needed another reason to run screaming from “We Built This City,” it’s because they don’t pronounce “city” in the proper rock way.
The other pronunciation “tip” I have for today’s young singers is to make sure you pronounce all “oo” sounds as “oh” or “ow.” Doing so is really “edgy” and has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that “oo” is harder to sing in tune than the others. No, nothing at all. You’ll fool everyone. No one will notice. Over and over. Really.
Eric Burdon is one of rock best lyric butchers, but heck, that his style, right? I introduce into evidence House of The Rising Sun. It’s Northern England meets Southern Black America.
“There is a haus in Neworlins, they cull the risin’ sun,
And it’s bin the ru-uhn of manny-ah po-boy,
In gadd, I know I’m one.”
YES!
BRIAN WILSON (thinks): “If everybody had an ocean, across the USA, then everybody’d be surfing, like Californ…” [oh god, this doesn’t rhyme, what shall I do? aw heck, this’ll suffice] “…I-AYYY”
“Anyou, anyou, anyou ain’t got no othah, lovah,” Dwight Twilley, I’m On Fire (or Fiyah).
Kind of off topic. Procul Harem’s “Whiter Shade of Pale” lyric is “sixteen vestal versions” When I initially heard I swear the words sounded like When their sixteen their still virgins.
My response to topic: Pink Floyd song “Pigs”
Sure is odd charade is pronounced “sure-odd.” Sometimes mispronunciations are that way to fit the melody, tempo or rhythm or any combination.
“It might as well be string”?
As far as I’m concerned, “jag-war” should always be pronounced “jag-ee-yar.”
aloha
LD
Y’know what I always wince at? Rock songs are the only place where you hear the word “Ain-jelll” (as in Stevie Nicks’ pronunciation).
Oops that should be when they are sixteen they’re still virgins
That’s a good one, and it reminds me of songs in which the woman’s name Angie is pronounced Ah-ain-jee.
Over 2 weeks I recently spent in California I didn’t hear anyone pronounce it that way. Nice!
You know that stuff that burns on top of your coals at your summer bbqs? In the rock world, it’s called “fie-yuh.” (See Jimi Hendrix, The Cult, The Doors, etc.)
Indeed!
Let’s just throw every word spoken by The Fall’s Mark E. Smith onto the pile. Likewise Johnny Rotten. The schwa sound is so punk rock!
EXCEPT for Rockpile’s “Heart of the City”…..which doesn’t rhyme “city” with anything, even though the word is repeated throughout.
“…a chasin’ dun dah hoodoo dehr”
The Ohio Players….”Fiiie-yuh!…Woo woo woo WUH woo-ah, lahr…!”
“I am an Antichrist-ah/ I am an anar-CHIGHST-ah”
There is no such thing as ending a line with an -or sound, such as floor or more, it must be flow or mow, in current radio-friendly parlance.
Funny, on the drive in to work today I just heard the late, great Alex Chilton yearning for a ticket on an AER-O-PLANE.
I get the hives whenever I hear modern-day R&B chanteuses pronouncing the word “you” — which obviously makes many appearances in modern song — as “shoo.” I believe this is done to give the word a more aggressive, percussive effect. It most often appears in instances where the word “you” starts off a line.
For example, if Beyonce’ were to perform “Foxy Lady,” I believe it would sound like this:
Shoo know you’re a cute little heartbreaker
An’ shoo know you’re a sweet little love maker
… etc.
There’s also the ubiquitous “bay-beh,” and (personal fave) “bay-buh” for “baby.”
I was listening to Jack White’s album earlier, and I’m not sure he pronounces anything correctly! The two that cracked me up were from I’m Shakin’. He sings, “Yeah an’ I’m sweah – in” and “You got me noy vus.”
But it’s a great album. It gets better every time I hear it.
Doesn’t Bowie do that in “Golden Years”?