Mispronunciations in music

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

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  1. namahealani

    namahealani Forum Resident

    Has anyone said Mony Mony Tommy James and the Shondells yet?
    Break 'dis, shake 'dis, Mony, Mony
    Shot gun, get it done, come on, honey
    I think Billy Idol omits "Ho-Knee" and sings Mony instead.

    Then there's Steve Miller's made up word in The Joker (not a mispronunciation though)
    Some people call me Maurice,
    'Cause I speak of the pompatus of love.
     
    Last edited: Apr 20, 2017
    negative1 likes this.
  2. PatrickG

    PatrickG Forum Resident

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    The Kinks' "Dandy": Ray Davies comically rhyming "charms" with "demands" (comes out as "demarnds").
     
  3. Skydogg

    Skydogg Well-Known Member

    Here's an interesting sidebar on the story of that Pompatus word What Does 'The Pompatus Of Love' Mean?
     
  4. hayden10538

    hayden10538 Well-Known Member

    Location:
    Essex, England
    During the 68 comeback special, Elvis is asked if he enjoys todays music. He replies by listing some bands - The Beatles, The Byrds - which he mispronounces as beards.

    Paul McCartney sings 'yellow, olange and blue', during All Together Now from Yellow Submarine.

    In ELO's When Time Stood Still, Jeff Lynne sings 'Echoes in the Ivory towers', but he mispronounces it as EEvory. It took me years to work out what word he was supposed to be singing!
     
  5. mr_spenalzo

    mr_spenalzo Forum Resident

    Also, on "Archives Of Pain" James informs us that we'll be buried in the same box as Aki La... whoever she may be
     
    Changingman likes this.
  6. Deep Purple. "Woman From Tokyo". The capital of Japan is TOE-KAY-OH? 東京 Great song though.
     
  7. Benjamin Edge

    Benjamin Edge Forum Resident

    Location:
    Milwaukie, OR, US
    Not knowing "Kyo" (capital; hence "Tokyo" meaning "east capital") is also a single syllable!

    ~Ben
     
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  8. SKATTERBRANE

    SKATTERBRANE Forum Resident

    Location:
    Tucson, AZ
    I find that Brits and some US East coast accents exchange a's and r's.

    That is my US "saw" becomes McCartney's "sar". And my America becomes Kennedy's Ameriker.
    And my "levER" become their "levAH"
    It is quite curious that in this case both phonetics are culturally familiar, and yet we reverse them in many cases "ah" for "er" and "er" for "ah".
    Many Asians confuse the SOUND of Westerner's L and R, so they repeat back to our ears an L sound where a R sound belongs and visa versa. I have an Asian friend that wrote a note to me that actually substituted Ls for Rs and Rs for Ls in many words.
     
  9. SKATTERBRANE

    SKATTERBRANE Forum Resident

    Location:
    Tucson, AZ
    Yep! Americans pronounce it To KEE yo. When it is To kyo. (I cannot even think of a good way to show how to pronounce it in writing).
     
  10. SKATTERBRANE

    SKATTERBRANE Forum Resident

    Location:
    Tucson, AZ
    In some places in Kentucky it is pronounced "Cain't".
     
  11. czeskleba

    czeskleba Senior Member

    Location:
    Seattle
    It's unclear if he's referring to the Byrds. He says "I like a lot of the new groups... the Beatles, the Beards, whatever." I'm of the opinion that he's simply making a joke about the fact that a lot of bands at the time were sporting facial hair, and "the beards" is just a made-up band name for the purposes of his joke.
     
  12. SKATTERBRANE

    SKATTERBRANE Forum Resident

    Location:
    Tucson, AZ
    Here in Tucson we have a road named Houghton. The locals pronounce it HOW-ton. I refuse to comply. I pronounce it HOE-ton. We also have a town Prescott they pronounce Pres-cit, being from Wisconsin I say Press-SCAWT, because I do not have a wad of snuff in my lip.
     
  13. SKATTERBRANE

    SKATTERBRANE Forum Resident

    Location:
    Tucson, AZ
    How about EYE Ching instead of E-Ching?
     
    Benjamin Edge likes this.
  14. SKATTERBRANE

    SKATTERBRANE Forum Resident

    Location:
    Tucson, AZ
  15. I suppose if Ian was looking for a three syllable city name in Japan, he could have gone with "Woman From Osaka".
     
  16. Even classier: the interpretation I heard on the playground was "she's so f**kin' gay", whatever that was supposed to mean in context.
     
  17. Everyone in my family except me were born in Texas, my parents born and raised there. My dad would tell me to "warsh the car" or "warsh the dishes" or "do the warsh". On top of everything else, for a while we lived in Washington state, which naturally became "Warshington" to him. I have no idea where he picked that up.
     
  18. On a similar front: "Vietnam" is almost always pronounced "Vee-Yet-Namm" in English, but it should be two syllables kind of like "V'yet - Nam".
     
    andrewskyDE likes this.
  19. DaveinMA

    DaveinMA Some guy


    The line that starts at about the 1:04 mark.
     
  20. Aw I love that song!
     
  21. Nah, it rhymes with road. It is bad grammar though.
    But it's clever, really. Just like all the strange, nonsensical imagery he'd do later on when "going electric" that people read into and thought were "deep" - like the line about a Siamese cat.
     
    stereoptic likes this.
  22. negative1

    negative1 80s retro fan

    Location:
    USA
    Fleetwood mac - sara

    Drown-D-ing in the sea of love... where everyone would love to drown...



    somehow a d sound got in there from stevie nicks, still love the song though.

    later
    -1
     
  23. InStepWithTheStars

    InStepWithTheStars It's a miracle, let it alter you

    Location:
    North Carolina
    I have to assume that Lou Reed either loved that pronunciation or just knew that it would get under peoples' skin (or both), because Nico also sing's "yesterday's clon" in "All Tomorrow's Parties". Still a fantastic song! I'm trying to remember now if Alex pronounced it the same way in the Big Star cover, been ages since I've heard that version. I should probably remedy that...
     
  24. deredordica

    deredordica Music Freak

    Location:
    Sonoma County, CA
    Rush's "Red Barchetta", which they had the sense not to fix in later concert recordings.
     
  25. Drifter

    Drifter AAD survivor

    Location:
    Vancouver, BC, CA
    No one's mentioned "Marconi plays the mamba". :D
     
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