Mispronunciations in music

John Cale "The man who couldn't afford to orgy"

 

I get hungry for women

 

On Iris DeMent's new album, an adaptation of poems by Anna Akhmatova, she talks about a storm cloud "lowering" ("loe-ur," as in "below a former position") over Russia. Obviously, she means "lour" ("laow-ur"), also spelled "lower" but pronounced differently and from a different etymology. I'm not sure if she misread the poem or was simply unaware of how to pronounce "lower" in the sense of "lour."

On the first Roger McGuinn solo album, Roger uses the word "integral" several times during the song "Time Cube," pronouncing it "intriggle."

This one's not exactly a mispronunciation, but on Gene Clark's White Light album Gene seems to think "whom" is a fancy way of saying "who" and so he says nonsensical things like "the beggar whom sits in the street . . . envisions no wealth" and talks about "bells / whom are ringing".

And, of course, I have read that "Rhymney" (as in "Bells of Rhymney") should be RUM-ney, but no-one ever sings it that way.

 

Also: in concert he'd overpronounce "cretin" so it sounded like "creating" - "creee-ay-tin!"

 

Seems Dr. Steve Brule wrote the lyrics for this particular verse!

 

The "cs" is there, but it's very low in the mix... he does still force the rhyme with "product" though (nar-cot-ucks rather than nar-cot-icks).

 

I think a lot of these sound like local accents, or poetic licence.

I like licentiousness.

 

Frank Zappa's "Camarillo Brillo"....
'Camarillo' rhymes with 'brio', not 'brillo'.

 

I'm familiar with the Scottish town of Aberlour, but without my Scottish wife would have guessed at saying Aberlure, as I would say tour.

I can imagine clouds glowering.

Words is fun

 

That's the first one that came to mind. Never really knew what to make of it - intentional on Paul's part? Does not really seem consistent with the rest of his singing/pronunciation from that era.

 

In 41 years of being an English speaker, I have never heard anyone pronounced any way other than FEM.

 

Why does he change "Toad" so that it doesn't rhyme with "Road?" It sounds like he says Toww-ed

 

He does it a bit here too - and what's with "they send me" instead of "they tell me"? He sang that at the Decca audition too, but there he didn't sing "never sawr them at all".:

 

An error I often see on this board as well.

That's not quite true, I've heard it sung/pronounced correctly several times. Can't remember any names right now, though.

 

It really is "fam" in French:

 

Springsteen in most live versions of "Born To Run" (but not the studio version):

"I wanna die wichew on the streets tonight in an everlasting kiss"

 

Neil Young had a heck of a time pronouncing the word "steroids" on the studio version of "Let's Impeach the President". For the live CSNY versions he gave up trying, and made a bit of a joke out of it ("stir-eee-oids").

 

she's so funky yeah.
she's so funkular
she's so popular

man that song is so good

 

Which is pretty much what I hear in Lou Reed's Waiting Game (He wants to spend his autumn years 'wit chou')

 

...or Jeux sans frontières.

 

Literally translates to "Games without Frontiers."

~Ben

 

Her pronunciation is so poor though - it's no wonder so many misheard it.

 

You mean Kurt Weill's "September Song"?

 

Shawn Phillips in 1965 pronounces it more like "ROM-nee", not "RUM-nee":



Here, in 2006, McGuinn also pronounces it "Rom-nee":

https://youtu.be/ahdEHqWcN1o

I found some other choir versions that pronounce it that way as well. Not a "RUM-nee" to be found.



Murray Head of "Jesus Christ Superstar" fame pronounces it more like "RAM-nee" in this fine version from 1965:

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