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I'm curious about some pronunciation practices. In the song Breakdown (Daughtry) it sounds as if he sings break deown or something like that. In the song Every Time You Turn Around (Leave This Town) the word "down" sounds like I've been taught. Why does he pronounce it differently in first case? Has it to do with the sound and mixing and such in that particular passage? Had it sounded strange if he'd used normal pronunciation on a long "down"?

When I listen to the song, I hear "breakdown" in the earlier sections, and "breakdan" in the later parts. English has an infinite number of pronunciations, and there isn't really a standard practice. And people hear different things from the same speaker. As an example, when a Canadian says "out" and American hears "oot". When an American says "out" a Canadian hears "at". (When an Australian says "out", no-one else can make any sense of it.)

Since rock singers seem never to have studied elocution, this has given rise to Mondegreens. To this day, I still don't know what Manfred Mann is singing in "Blinded by the Light", but I know it isn't "revved up like a deuce".

Actually, it IS "revved up like a deuce," which most folks interpret to mean a hotrodded Ford II, a "deuce coupe." I think Springsteen's original line was "cut loose like a deuce," which he says is a common Jersey phrase for dumping a significant other (in poker, you throw away a low card when drawing, as in "cut the deuce loose.") i.e., "Where's Natalie lately?" "Oh, I cut her loose like a deuce."

And its not just rock singers. The word "mondegreen" comes from wide misunderstanding of a line from a middle English ballad that contains the couplet, "They have have slain the Earl of Moray, and laid him on the green." Essayist Sylvia Wright wrote a piece in 1954 talking about how she had always misheard the lyric as being, "The have slain the Earl of Moray, and Lady Mondegreen."

She proposed in that essay that "mondegreen" become the name of a misheard phrase, and it pretty much has.

bayswater wrote:When I listen to the song, I hear "breakdown" in the earlier sections, and "breakdan" in the later parts. English has an infinite number of pronunciations, and there isn't really a standard practice. And people hear different things from the same speaker. As an example, when a Canadian says "out" and American hears "oot". When an American says "out" a Canadian hears "at". (When an Australian says "out", no-one else can make any sense of it.)

Ok, thanks

Yes it's more "correct" in the beginning, I agree.

Gravity Jim wrote:The word "mondegreen" comes from wide misunderstanding of a line from a middle English ballad that contains the couplet, "They have have slain the Earl of Moray, and laid him on the green." Essayist Sylvia Wright wrote a piece in 1954 talking about how she had always misheard the lyric as being, "The have slain the Earl of Moray, and Lady Mondegreen."

She proposed in that essay that "mondegreen" become the name of a misheard phrase, and it pretty much has.

Poor Lady Mondegreen. She did nothing to deserve that. Why did they have to slay her, too?

In the studio, I'm always listening for mondegreens. I tell singers what I hear. It's up to them to decide to change it. They come up a lot more often than one might think. Sometimes I dodge consonants and try to eliminate them from a mixing standpoint, but when it's just in the words, there's nothing you can do but tell the singer, and provide the lyrics in the album. There have been some pretty raunchy ones; I don't write them down and soon forget them, but it's important to point those out before putting up the microphones.

Shoosh

Shooshie wrote:...There have been some pretty raunchy ones; I don't write them down and soon forget them, but it's important to point those out before putting up the microphones...

I can't for the life of me remember what the line was supposed to be, but one of my female songwriter clients had a line that I kept hearing as, "...and stored it in his bum."

The song Play That Funky Music has a chorus that I could never figure out completely. I wasn't sure whether it has one, two or no mondegreens. It was decades later that I finally saw the lyrics on the internet and knew it has one. Not so sure whether it has two. But at least it's not zero.

Shoosh

Speaking of wierdly sung pronunciation, the song "If You Could Only See" by Tonic always sounded to me like "If you kid only see". Third I Blind "Jumper" kind of goes back and forth between "I wid understand" and the normal pronunciation- at least that's how i have always heard it. I saw a video where some recent pop singers are turning 1 syllable into 2 or 3 but I forget the specifics (because they were forgettable).

To me mis-heard lyrics like "'scuse me while I kiss this guy" is a completely different thing than weird pronunciations as above although there might be some overlap.

I'll think of more examples right after I post this.

This thread is starting to get really funny!