songs where singers pronounce words incorrectly

'venus de my-low' just sounds kinda stupid

now i am putting off doing things by reading about greek vowel sounds

Ivor Cutler had a song called "I Got No Common Sense" on his album Velvet Donkey, where he sings the line "I got no common sense, and neither has nobody else" a few times. But one time he sings "and neither has nobody esle" - he was probably just singing what he wrote and had misspelled it!

randy newman, "louisiana 1927" -- "river has busted through clear down to plaquemines." he rhymes it with "line." but it should rhyme with "lin," as in jeremy lin, right?

Orange Juice - In A Nutshell
mer-sen-REE instead of mer-sen-AIR-ee

The first one I remember was Ronnie Hazlehurst's "In a windmill in old Amsterdam"

"They sang every morning "How lucky we are
living in a windmill, in Amsterdam? Ja!"

He pronounces Ja like it was Jar. As a three yer old, I just thought it was the postcode like "Philadelphia PA" sort of thing.

Can we talk about Nat King Cole's Spanish album here because omg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDGgUGBD-90

there's a song by the chemistry set from '87 about minas tirith. they pronounce it "minus tirith".

A lot of these aren't mispronunciations, they're just not being pronounced the way the poster pronounces them or thinks they should be pronounced, e.g. mercenary.

xp
are you seriously complaining about the pronunciation of tolkein place names

In his song of the same name, Robin Gibb pronounces "Farmer Ferdinand Hudson", "Farmer FERNIDAD Hudson". This is even more obvious in the full 12 minute three part version released on his recent boxset, because it's the very first line of the second part of the song, "Farmer FERNIDAD Hudson"... I mean, WTFLOL?!?!?

― The Manner of Crawly (Tom D.), Tuesday, 23 June 2015 17:39 (one year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Peter Hammill pronounces 'defecating' as 'deefecating' on "Still Life" by Van der Graaf Generator. Bad enough if he'd pronounced it correctly tbh.

yeah coz he's well posh

"Fernidad" is killing me right now. That's a proper mispronunciation.

are you seriously complaining about the pronunciation of tolkein place names

― glumdalclitch

i'm not the one who decided to do a song about fucking minas tirith!

I've noticed that virtually everyone, outside of Scotland, pronounces "Auld Lang Syne" as "Auld Lang Zyne", for no apparent reason.

Would it be churlish to complain that Michael Jackson places the stress on the first syllable of 'entire' in Heal the World?

D.Boon on "The Glory of Man" "the space measurer"

Which is according to Watt "MW: He goes MAY - surer. The Space MAY - surer. He's literally reading it off the page for the second or third time!"

róisín murphy in "overpowered" saying oxytoxin instead of oxytocin

Backstreet's Back - "So everybody everywhere, don't be afraid, don't have no Fe-AIR"

There's several examples of James Dean Bradfield mangling or mispronouncing words on Manic Street Preachers stuff.

"ambulance" pronounced as "am-boo-lonce"
"pendulum" pronounced with a hard D.
"Richard Gere" pronounced with a soft G so it sounds like "Richard Jeer"

There's a great scene in The Filth & The Fury where John Lydon describes rhyming "anarchist" with "antichrist" and the band thinking it was wrong.

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

― mr.raffles, Wednesday, August 29, 2012 2:24 PM (four years ago)

how is that wrong?

It's how Sean Connery would sing it.

"Fernidad" is killing me right now. That's a proper mispronunciation.

why do I find this so funny

it's like something a memester would contrive

Sonny Bono: "Grandmas sit in chairs and rem-o-nisce" - The Beat Goes On

My favourite example of this has to be Infinity by Guru Josh. Because (1) who in the world pronounces it "goo-roo"? and (2) IT'S HIS OWN NAME

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2CIiES_xxk

Just found out Guru Josh committed suicide :((((

What a jam

That Nancy and Lee song about the Green-wich songwriter, they even comment on it halfway in then Lee says 'I dunno, I didn't write it.'

'dunker shane' by wayne newton

It's not incorrect, but I'm always bothered by the stranglers 'lahst' and 'mahst'. I can see pronouncing one that way, but both bothers me for some reason.

Um, both are correct. Does anyone pronounce them differently to each other?

I do - mast always with a short a. They would rhyme fine if he did them both that way.

Last seems to change a lot though. Like I said it's not incorrect, I'm just not sure I've ever heard anyone say mahst.

I've backed myself into a corner I can't defend here...it just sounds really queer and forced to me.

That Nancy and Lee song about the Green-wich songwriter, they even comment on it halfway in then Lee says 'I dunno, I didn't write it.'

I saw Lee Hazlewood perform in New York once and he sang "Houston" - which he did write - and he pronounced it How-ston as a little joke for the locals

How is "guru" supposed to be pronounced? I say "goo-roo"

all-time favorite is nivea "laudromat" (pronounced "laundry-mat")

Well I can find both /ˈɡʊ.ɹuː/ and /ˈɡuː.ɹuː/ cited online, but have a listen to Infinity and tell me it sounds right

He seems to be saying gu-roooahhhh.

i for one am shocked that Paul Walden, Jersey-born son of dentist Harold Walden, may not have pronounced "Guru" according to Sanskrit orthodoxy

Britney in "PIece of Me" - derrière = dairy-er

Apparently some people say it that way, but it still sounds funny

"hyperbowl"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLK3LymaVAA

those words are her own, she can pronounce freely

Well I can find both /ˈɡʊ.ɹuː/ and /ˈɡuː.ɹuː/ cited online, but have a listen to Infinity and tell me it sounds right

It sounds the same as Marc Bolan's pronunciation in "Metal Guru" to me? I think most North Americans would accent the first syllable instead of the second but afaict, the two syllables sound to me like they have about equal emphasis when Indian people pronounce them, so neither really sounds 'better' than the other to me.

I was wondering wtf was up with the Weekend pronouncing Wrath of Khan as Wraith of Khan, but apparently it's a deliberate reference to the roof of his Rolls Royce. ⭐

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoA_zY6tqQw
Dead Kennedys - California Über Alles

The singer pronounces the letter "ü" as if it was "u", even though they are two different sounds. Maybe it's unfair to criticise an American for not knowing how to pronounce German, but they shouldn't have had their chorus in that language then. The mispronounciation is even more pronounced in the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy song that samples the Dead Kennedys tune:

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

Dead Kennedys - California Über Alles

The singer pronounces the letter "ü" as "u", even though they are two different sounds. The mispronounciation is even more pronounced in the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy tune that samples Dead Kennedys:

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

Maybe it's unfair to criticise Americans for mispronouncing German, but OTOH you shouldn't have you chorus in a foreign language if you don't know how it's pronounced.