songs where singers pronounce words incorrectly

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0sTpZja6JQ

Baby, baby, fawwin' in love
I'm fawwin' in love again
Baby, baby, fawwin' in love
I'm fawwin' in love again
Baby, baby, fawwin' in love
I'm fawwin' in love again
Baby, baby, fawwin' in love
I'm fawwin' in love again

Similarly:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_AA3O66gjI

"Think of Wayne"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VsmF9m_Nt8

Julie Covington on the original Evita concept album kept pronouncing 'descamisados' as "day-camisados"

If Adriano Celentano got it wrong does that mean Mike Reid got it right?

In "Ain't Gonna Feel", Kurt Hauenstein of Supermax invents the word live-able, and then rhymes it with liveable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30P3EuPeNzs

This topic merges nicely with one of my favorites, 'songs where singers have recently learned or become enamored with a particular word and are probably using it for one of the first times ever' (although Seven Mary Three did manage to pronounce 'cowmbersowme' relatively correctly).

But anyway:

Silverchair - 'pure massEEEEEEEEcre'
Sponge - 'it's wax a-static'

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?