Mispronunciations in music

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Cheli Venco, Jan 18, 2016.

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  1. emitex

    emitex Forum Resident

    Location:
    NYC
    I remember an interview once where it was stated his last name rhymes with "Heart" or Neil "Part".
     
  2. emitex

    emitex Forum Resident

    Location:
    NYC
    The first one that comes to mind is The Platters Only You.
    Only You... CAND make the world seem right
    Only You... CAND make the darkness bright...
    etc...
     
    utopiarun likes this.
  3. Benjamin Edge

    Benjamin Edge Forum Resident

    Location:
    Milwaukie, OR, US
    Avril Lavigne did, though.

    ~Ben
     
  4. Lije Baley

    Lije Baley Forum Resident

    This is an interesting thread. I've been bugged since the mid-sixties by the Beatles "soar" instead of "saw" and was surprised many did not hear the "error." However, the linguistic lessons of the past few pages have clarified that for me. In fact, my father was born in Michigan and always pronounced "wash" as "worsh," a similar pronunciation pattern. The discussion reminded me of a book I'd once browsed (and wish I'd bought) of misunderstood song lyrics. The most common one from CCR is "There's a bathroom on the right." In fact, Googling the phrase leads to several videos, one of which has soundclips of the actual lyrics with the misheard lyrics printed on the screen. Embarrassingly, with several songs, I heard what was printed...


    I found an amusing article describing the most commonly misunderstood lyrics on the NBC news website:
    "San Francisco Chronicle columnist Jon Carroll, one of my favorite columnists writing today, refers to misheard lyrics as "Mondegreens." It comes from an old Scottish lyric, "they have slain the Earl of Murray, and laid him on the green," which was misheard as "they have slain the Earl of Murray, and Lady Mondegreen."

    Carroll believes the most misheard lyric is "Gladly, the cross-eyed bear," as opposed to the real lyric, "Gladly, the cross I'd bear." Hmm. Funny, but that hymn's not in too many of our daily radio rotations.

    But he admits that "There's a bathroom on the right," as misheard for CCR's "There's a bad moon on the rise," is a close second. Numerous readers have submitted "bathroom on the right" in our comments, despite admitting with embarrassment that, well, the song's title should perhaps have tipped them off.

    Here are just a few of those other most-misheard lyrics, as compiled most unscientifically by me, poking around those sites:
    • "The girl with colitis goes by." (Real lyric: "The girl with kaleidoscope eyes," Beatles)
    • "Olive, the other reindeer." (Real lyric: "All of the other reindeer.")
    • "The ants are my friends, they're blowing in the wind." (Real lyric: "The answer is blowing in the wind," Bob Dylan.)
    • "There's a wino down the road." (Real lyric: "And as we wind on down the road," Led Zeppelin.)
    • "In a glob of Velveeta, honey." (Real lyric: "In-A-Gadda Da Vida," a.k.a., "In the garden of Eden," Iron Butterfly.)"
     
  5. nikh33

    nikh33 Senior Member

    Location:
    Liverpool, England
    Well then it must be the reverb
     
  6. bunglejerry

    bunglejerry Forum Resident

    Location:
    Toronto, ON
    Of course this famous example is a case not of mishearing but of misunderstanding, since the two sentences are phonetically identical.
     
  7. BwanaBob

    BwanaBob Forum Resident

    Location:
    Maryland, USA
    Shame on my school. We were taught that the long vowel sounds mimicked the actual vowel letter; may / beat/ child/ cold/ use.
     
  8. bunglejerry

    bunglejerry Forum Resident

    Location:
    Toronto, ON
    Or "canda", as one might spell it. This one is really mystifying, since of course no one in their own speaking voice is going to pronounce 'can' in a way that, if anything, approximates its exact opposite. The strange pronunciation must be intentionally put on. But why?
     
  9. BrewDrinkRepeat

    BrewDrinkRepeat Forum Resident

    Location:
    Merchantville NJ
    I've never heard that one! Crazy... and not at all true.
     
  10. BrewDrinkRepeat

    BrewDrinkRepeat Forum Resident

    Location:
    Merchantville NJ
    Well, since this whole thread is about pronunciation...
     
    nikh33 likes this.
  11. stereoptic

    stereoptic Anaglyphic GORT Staff

    Location:
    NY
    From Don't Think Twice, It's Alright by Bob Dylan:
    It ain’t no use in turnin’ on your light, babe
    That light I never knowed

    This may be more bad grammar than bad pronunciation!
     
    Fastnbulbous likes this.
  12. HGN2001

    HGN2001 Mystery picture member

    This is not a mis-pronunciation per se but a difference in UK/US customs, I guess, and that's the hard 'g' in the 'ing' construction. The US population generally doesn't add the hard 'g' sound, but I believe the Brit's do. Best example I can think of is Paul McCartney in "The Songs We Were Singgingg". I've also heard it among the US Jewish population.

    Harry
     
  13. bunglejerry

    bunglejerry Forum Resident

    Location:
    Toronto, ON
    I had a friend when I was a child who was born in Canada to Mancunian parents, and while he bore no trace of an English accent himself we had a discussion about whether 'singer' and 'finger' rhymed. I was flabbergasted that he insisted they did, in fact, rhyme.
     
  14. J.A.W.

    J.A.W. Music Addict

    Since we are now also talking about grammar (see gort Stereoptic's post above), why the apostrophe in "Brits"? Just wondering.

    As for the hard g, I've heard many Brits pronounce "singer" with a hard g. Most were from the North of England.
     
    Last edited: Jan 22, 2016
  15. Golden Richards

    Golden Richards Forum Rodent

    "Young things from Boston, so young and wheeling"

    Hey Nineteen came up on my shuffle this morning and I immediately thought of this thread.
     
  16. thrivingonariff

    thrivingonariff Forum Resident

    Location:
    US
    I think you've misunderstood the point of my (admittedly less than clear) post, which I intentionally kept brief, as a mod has already expressed his disapproval (via deletion of a few of my and others' posts) of the point we're discussing. To confirm, I was still talking about pronunciation in my previous post.
     
  17. Solitaire1

    Solitaire1 Carpenters Fan

    According to the song's entry in Carpenters - Album by Album: Song by Song by Rick Henry, "wind" is the correct word, but it is often misheard as "wine."
     
  18. HGN2001

    HGN2001 Mystery picture member

    Because I made a mistake and didn't correct it. I really do know better. Ironically, it's one of those things that bothers me, and I can't believe I did that!
     
    bleachershane and J.A.W. like this.
  19. Brother Maynard

    Brother Maynard Forum Resident

    Location:
    Dallas, TX
    In Springsteen's "We Take Care of Our Own", there's the line "There ain't no help, the cavalry stayed home". I have it in my head he pronounces it "calvary", which is a fairly common mispronunciation.
     
  20. HGN2001

    HGN2001 Mystery picture member

    According to the printed lyrics in the 35th Anniversary box set and the SWEET MEMORY set, it's "wine."

    [​IMG]

    Why would the songwriter use the word "wind", when it's clearly designed to rhyme with "mind?"

    As for Rick Henry, he's not exactly the most credible authority, just a super-fan who tends toward Karen worship and has self published some stuff. (Example: http://karenannecarpenter.blogspot.com/ )
     
  21. negative1

    negative1 80s retro fan

    Location:
    USA
    flock of seagulls - i ran

    i'm floating in a beam of light with yeeeeeeeeewwwwwww
    ,,,,,
    aurora borealis comes in viiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
    aurora comes in viiiiiiiiieeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

    and i ran, etc.


    later
    -1
     
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  22. Alexlotl

    Alexlotl Forum Resident

    Location:
    York, UK
    The otherwise excellent La Parade from Yann Tiersen's L'Absente, which is sung in English, has the vocalist sing "River Thames" as "River Fames" rather than "River Tems".
     
  23. urasam2

    urasam2 A Famous Potato

    When Eric Clapton sings While My Guitar Gently Weeps in The Concert For George, he sings " I look AND the floor" and "I look AND you all" instead of "at". That's what it sounds like to me, and it grates every time
     
  24. tim_neely

    tim_neely Forum Hall Of Fame

    Location:
    Central VA
    Then there's Billy Joel singing about "Brender 'n' Eddie" in "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant."
     
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  25. Grawlix

    Grawlix Forum Resident

    Location:
    California
    I don't know if it's incorrect per se, but Helpless "Au-to-MAY-ton" by Men At Work has always bothered me. :p
     
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