songs where singers pronounce words incorrectly

1. Urban Dance Squad - "Downer" ("Icarus" pronounced "EYE-ca-rus)
2. Blackalicious - "Alphabet Aerobics" ("Zealots" pronounced "ZEE-LOTS")

in the context of the song, is Morrissey intentionally mispronouncing plagiarise?

or ironically, did he actually not know how to pronounce it?

he says "ek-cetera" in "sweet and tender hooligan" too

Gronlandic Edit by of Montreal - gro-sha-rees for groceries

XTC "Season Cycle" - umbil-eye-cal

I find the way the guy sings "recognize" in M83's "Steve McQueen" utterly charming.

any Phoenix songs i've heard are a mindfield of insane pronunciation.

Natasha Bedingfield singing 'no hyper-bowl to hide behind' in "These Words"

does McCartney's mangling of French in Michelle count

Chuck Berry's deliberate mispronunciation of "a la carte" in 'Promised Land'

does McCartney's mangling of French in Michelle count

Huh?

michael stipe mangles "cuyahoga"

lemonade pronounced limonade in underground lovers 'promenade' (perhaps obvious why)

Not mispronunciation, but Kate Bush's "Sex-you-ull Healing" cracks me up. Xp

Does it have to be unintentional? This morning I was listening to Lush's "Untogether" where she pronounces "behave" as "behavey" (for a slant rhyme with "happy").

Apparently Sting mispronounces Nabokov's name in "Don't Stand So Close to Me." I wouldn't know.

Regarding the pronunciation of his last name, in the BBC Guide it notes-- "Although the author's surname is often pronounced nab-uh-kof, he told the BBC that this [nuh-boe-kof] was his preferred English pronunciation, with the middle syllable stressed, and rhyming with 'smoke'."

La Lechara: http://www.wksu.org/news/story/23610

Lechera, ahem.

Doesn't Jay Z mispronounce Kanye's name on some of Kanye's earlier productions that he produced for him?

sorry, commenters otm
you have several choices (pardon my lack of proper IPA)

ky-a-HOE-ga
ca-HOG-ah
cauga
or even ky-OG-ah or ky-OH-ga

but none of them rhyme with /coy/ and having grown up in the valley i claim folk linguistics on this one

I say caya-HOG-a. HOE-ga is ok, too, and does not rankle me.

Apparently Sting mispronounces Nabokov's name in "Don't Stand So Close to Me." I wouldn't know.

― Mr. Snrub, Wednesday, August 29, 2012 7:16 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

i think that line is just ridiculed because he rhymes the name w/ "shake and cough"?

ramones "chainsaw" : texas chainsaw mass-a-cree

Elton John
Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me - "Don't dizgard me"
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road - "Huntin' the horny-backed taaaOO-oad" and "It'll take you a couple of vodker and tonics"

john cale - "the man who couldn't afford to orgy"

When I read Lolita I kept expecting "shake and cough" to describe Humbert Humbert but there's nothing of the sort. Sting saw the movie.

A shout out to Stereolab for deliberately mispronouncing numerous words throughout their career.

Elton John in "Harmony" as understood by a ten year old: "looking for an island in a bloated pharmacy"

beyonce "1+1": algebra is pronounced algerba

Wasn't there a song on Stankonia where Andre Benjamin pronounces "Robin" like it's a French word ("raw-ban") so he can get it to rhyme with "Batman"?

haha tori amos to thread

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aD4egZFxw8

"va - neee - llyuuuhhh"

(it's meant to be "vanilla")

Hey Midnight Dancer by Arabesque manages to rhyme "Venezuela" with "tequila".

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road - "Huntin' the horny-backed taaaOO-oad" and "It'll take you a couple of vodker and tonics"

Vodka sounds OK in that line to me - although couple sounds oddly like caaple.

I YAM AN AN-AR-KYST!

I don't think he's pronouncing in incorrectly there so much as he's over enunciating?

he's mispronouncing so it will rhyme

Oh yeah nm I just sang it in my head - he definitely does.

lady marmalard?

Springsteen: My Hometown
They're closing down the textile mill....

It's correctly pronounced like next aisle, not next ill.

i wanna live in los an-ga-liss
i wanna live in los an-ga-liss

probably a nod to people pronouncing it that way in early 20th c.

XTC "Season Cycle" - umbil-eye-cal

I thought of this first too. Such a tortured rhyme but he gets points for trying, no?

I can think of a lot of foreign-language singers who do this but those are kind of cheap shots. Though Cornelius does have a song which (I think) kind of riffs on his inability to distinguish "clash" and "crash"

Peter Hammill, "A Chronic Catalepsy":

"like some automaton..."

He pronounces it OR-to-mayton whereas afaik it should be or-TOM-a-ton

Favorite mispronounced words in songs

Any time Pete Hammill pronounces something in an unusual way, I assume I'm the one who had it wrong

Silver Jews, "Seventeen doctors couldn't decide whether I should be allowed in the gime."

For now I say with sorrow until this time tomorrow
We'll bid you all a find adieu

ROLLING STONES - ON WITH THE SHOW

Basically, pronouncing "Tomorrow" to rhyme with "Adieu" is very difficult.

Unless you say it like "tomorrowwooooooo"

big one for me is always "venus de meelo" in "venus" by television

i dunno if that's incorrect

"mass-a-cree" is old timey legit!

I think that's just how UK ppl say it.

Related: Stop trying to make "What's the dillio?" happen: Songs that hitch their wagon to slang of the moment But yeah, grunge rock in particular seemed keen on grabbing hold of 11th grade vocabulary word sheets and just leaning into them hard, with curious results in terms of pronunciation, emphasis, etc.

Donovan, "Sand and Foam": "straining my eyes for a sur-FACING submarine"

i'm very enamored of carl wilson's pronunciation of "enveloping" on "feel flows"

hahaha, yeah that's great

There's a place in this thread for Steve Stills. I'm thinking of 'Isn't It Ay-bout Time?' in particular, but also all those songs where he pronounces 'away' 'ay-way'.

Tori Amos is responsible for some strangulated vowels throughout her career, just one example: "Baker baker, bake me a keek"

Lloyd Cole: "protagonist"

There's a place in this thread for Steve Stills. I'm thinking of 'Isn't It Ay-bout Time?' in particular, but also all those songs where he pronounces 'away' 'ay-way'.

I always wondered about the pronunciation of "around" in Matchbox 20's "Push". It almost sounds like "ay-round" to me. Do people in Florida really pronounce it that way?

Or is it just a byproduct of trying to place lexcial stress on a schwa?

*lexical

Tori Amos is responsible for some strangulated vowels throughout her career, just one example: "Baker baker, bake me a keek"

― Bloody Snail, Sunday, January 15, 2017 4:43 AM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Peace, love, and a hard kyeeeawwwk.

Ha, I had kind of assumed that her vowels had something to do with being Southern too.

I always wondered about the pronunciation of "around" in Matchbox 20's "Push". It almost sounds like "ay-round" to me. Do people in Florida really pronounce it that way?

― My Body's Made of Crushed Little Evening Stars (Sund4r), Sunday, January 15, 2017 9:17 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

no we do not!

Rob Thomas has marked post-yarl pronunciation generally - see "If You're Gorn," "Re-hull World," etc.

Oh my god, listening to 'Perfect Day' just now and realizing for the first time ever that the line is 'drink sangria in the park'. I had no idea what he was saying about the park before because it isn't pronounced 'sanGRAYuh' fer cryin' out loud, Lou (RIP).

^ Yeah that 'sangria' always grates

The chorus, at around 1:07.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a34IWLZJz_M

Tom Barman mispronouncing epigram but it has to fit the music. (dEUS)

Elvis Costello rhyming "pain" with "porcelain" in "You'll Never Be a Man"

The chorus, at around 1:07

i am reasonably certain that's the GREATEST MISPRONOUNCED WORD IN THE HISTORY OF MISPRONOUNCED WORDS.

On Nouvelle Vague's version of "The Guns of Brixton", Camille sings "no need for the black maria", but on the original Paul Simonon sang it as "mariah" (rhymes with pariah).

It's understandable that this happened, since for the Nouvelle Vague project, the producers had the singers cover songs that they'd never heard before. Camille probably had a lyrics sheet where someone transcribed the lyrics as "black maria" and she sang the word using the common pronunciation of that name.

What confuses more is that on Jimmy Cliff's 2012 cover of the same song, he also pronounces it wrong. Maybe he had heard the Nouvelle Vague version?

Incidentally, a black maria is a police van, and wikipedia confirms Paul Simonon's original pronunciation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_van#Black_Maria

Neither of them familiar with Louis Jordan's "Saturday Night Fish Fry" evidently...

Now they got us out of there like a house afire
Put us all in that Black Maria

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0shfkw2mAXs

they call the wind Mariaaaaaaa

Bjork mispronouncing "ghetto blaster" on 'There's More to Life Than This' ...

the vocalist is german so it's understandable but "Rodeo Drive" has the wrong pronunciation in the opiates' "anatomy of a plastic girl"

Proud Mary -- Big wheel keep on toining, proud Mary keep on boining

lol yeah Fogerty's borrowed New Orleans Yat pronunciation.

That's odd, because the "ü" sound is quite similar to the common "ew" sound in English (such as in "few", "screw", "news" etc).

This still mystifies me. Sounds to me like Jello sings "oober" which is the same sound as in "screw", and "ü" is not pronounced like "ew" anyway.

Is there another way to pronounce the name "Deirdre" that I am not aware of, or are the Beach Boys pulling a "texas chainsaw massacree" bit here?

How should it be pronounced?

I know at least one Deirdre, and she pronounces it "dear-druh," and that's how I've always heard it pronounced

It's usually pronounced Deirdri over here.

Arlo Guthrie - "Coming Into Los Angel-eees"

Seems wrong, but what do I know, I live on the est coast.

In "Tupelo Honey," Van Morrison rhymes "insight" with "granite," and I don't think that's a dialect thing at all.

I've heard "gran-ight" once in a blue moon, out in the world, but remain unclear on whether it's actually an accepted pronunciation in any region or community.

Arlo Guthrie - "Coming Into Los Angel-eees"

Seems wrong, but what do I know, I live on the est coast.

― henry s, Friday, December 15, 2023 10:16 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

the correct way is how Sam Elliott pronounces it in THE BIG LEBOWSKI

I’ve been obsessed for years with how Sam Elliott enunciates “Sacramento” in this one Coors commercial

Manic Street Preachers when they made a new album from Richey's notebooks years after he vanished:

"Shards, shards,
the androgyny fails,
Odalisque by Ingres, extra bones for sale"

sabotaged maybe the best lyric on the album by pronouncing Ingres so that it rhymes with 'embrace'.

Camera Obscura's Tracyanne Campbell on "I Missed Your Party" pronounces Billy Joel as Billy "jo-EL".

xp Ingres rhymes with Hongro, right?

David Sylvian in "The Devil's Own"...

"the ticking of the clock in-ex-OR-a-bly goes on"

I recall Green Gartside saying he only learnt how to pronounce Jacques Derrida correctly after he'd recorded and released the song

xxp Uhh YES, yes it does!! ROFL!

wait, how are you pronouncing Ingres/Hongro for them to rhyme?

correctly

Ingres should be pronounced 'Ang%#'

"o" is apparently pronounced "ooh" in Norwegian, and "ø" is the u sound in "ur"

gonna start calling Ingres "Oongrur" (ok I will probably never say Ingres out loud ever, but if I do)

You mean it isn't pronounced HANG-grə?

Another painter: on Game Theory's "Chardonnay", Scott Miller sings, "gonna take Ernst, Dali and De Chirico", pronounced "CHEER-i-co". Funny, since he had been a student of painting.

"o" is apparently pronounced "ooh" in Norwegian

can confirm as I once heard a pack of teenage girls in Bergen shout "YOOLOO"