songs where singers pronounce words incorrectly

1. Urban Dance Squad - "Downer" ("Icarus" pronounced "EYE-ca-rus)
2. Blackalicious - "Alphabet Aerobics" ("Zealots" pronounced "ZEE-LOTS")

in the context of the song, is Morrissey intentionally mispronouncing plagiarise?

or ironically, did he actually not know how to pronounce it?

he says "ek-cetera" in "sweet and tender hooligan" too

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

XTC "Season Cycle" - umbil-eye-cal

I find the way the guy sings "recognize" in M83's "Steve McQueen" utterly charming.

any Phoenix songs i've heard are a mindfield of insane pronunciation.

Natasha Bedingfield singing 'no hyper-bowl to hide behind' in "These Words"

does McCartney's mangling of French in Michelle count

Chuck Berry's deliberate mispronunciation of "a la carte" in 'Promised Land'

does McCartney's mangling of French in Michelle count

Huh?

michael stipe mangles "cuyahoga"

lemonade pronounced limonade in underground lovers 'promenade' (perhaps obvious why)

Not mispronunciation, but Kate Bush's "Sex-you-ull Healing" cracks me up. Xp

Does it have to be unintentional? This morning I was listening to Lush's "Untogether" where she pronounces "behave" as "behavey" (for a slant rhyme with "happy").

Apparently Sting mispronounces Nabokov's name in "Don't Stand So Close to Me." I wouldn't know.

Regarding the pronunciation of his last name, in the BBC Guide it notes-- "Although the author's surname is often pronounced nab-uh-kof, he told the BBC that this [nuh-boe-kof] was his preferred English pronunciation, with the middle syllable stressed, and rhyming with 'smoke'."

La Lechara: http://www.wksu.org/news/story/23610

Lechera, ahem.

Doesn't Jay Z mispronounce Kanye's name on some of Kanye's earlier productions that he produced for him?

sorry, commenters otm
you have several choices (pardon my lack of proper IPA)

ky-a-HOE-ga
ca-HOG-ah
cauga
or even ky-OG-ah or ky-OH-ga

but none of them rhyme with /coy/ and having grown up in the valley i claim folk linguistics on this one

I say caya-HOG-a. HOE-ga is ok, too, and does not rankle me.

Apparently Sting mispronounces Nabokov's name in "Don't Stand So Close to Me." I wouldn't know.

― Mr. Snrub, Wednesday, August 29, 2012 7:16 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

i think that line is just ridiculed because he rhymes the name w/ "shake and cough"?

ramones "chainsaw" : texas chainsaw mass-a-cree

Elton John
Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me - "Don't dizgard me"
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road - "Huntin' the horny-backed taaaOO-oad" and "It'll take you a couple of vodker and tonics"

john cale - "the man who couldn't afford to orgy"

When I read Lolita I kept expecting "shake and cough" to describe Humbert Humbert but there's nothing of the sort. Sting saw the movie.

A shout out to Stereolab for deliberately mispronouncing numerous words throughout their career.

Elton John in "Harmony" as understood by a ten year old: "looking for an island in a bloated pharmacy"

beyonce "1+1": algebra is pronounced algerba

Wasn't there a song on Stankonia where Andre Benjamin pronounces "Robin" like it's a French word ("raw-ban") so he can get it to rhyme with "Batman"?

haha tori amos to thread

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aD4egZFxw8

"va - neee - llyuuuhhh"

(it's meant to be "vanilla")

Hey Midnight Dancer by Arabesque manages to rhyme "Venezuela" with "tequila".

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road - "Huntin' the horny-backed taaaOO-oad" and "It'll take you a couple of vodker and tonics"

Vodka sounds OK in that line to me - although couple sounds oddly like caaple.

I YAM AN AN-AR-KYST!

I don't think he's pronouncing in incorrectly there so much as he's over enunciating?

he's mispronouncing so it will rhyme

Oh yeah nm I just sang it in my head - he definitely does.

lady marmalard?

Springsteen: My Hometown
They're closing down the textile mill....

It's correctly pronounced like next aisle, not next ill.

i wanna live in los an-ga-liss
i wanna live in los an-ga-liss

probably a nod to people pronouncing it that way in early 20th c.

XTC "Season Cycle" - umbil-eye-cal

I thought of this first too. Such a tortured rhyme but he gets points for trying, no?

I can think of a lot of foreign-language singers who do this but those are kind of cheap shots. Though Cornelius does have a song which (I think) kind of riffs on his inability to distinguish "clash" and "crash"

Peter Hammill, "A Chronic Catalepsy":

"like some automaton..."

He pronounces it OR-to-mayton whereas afaik it should be or-TOM-a-ton

Favorite mispronounced words in songs

Any time Pete Hammill pronounces something in an unusual way, I assume I'm the one who had it wrong

Silver Jews, "Seventeen doctors couldn't decide whether I should be allowed in the gime."

For now I say with sorrow until this time tomorrow
We'll bid you all a find adieu

ROLLING STONES - ON WITH THE SHOW

Basically, pronouncing "Tomorrow" to rhyme with "Adieu" is very difficult.

Unless you say it like "tomorrowwooooooo"

big one for me is always "venus de meelo" in "venus" by television

i dunno if that's incorrect

"mass-a-cree" is old timey legit!

I think that's just how UK ppl say it.

meelo, i mean

this has "my-lo" for both UK and US ... LOOK I CHECKED BEFORE POSTING

http://www.forvo.com/word/venus_de_milo/

SORRY!

or the greeks: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milos

Springsteen: My Hometown
They're closing down the textile mill....

It's correctly pronounced like next aisle, not next ill.

Both pronunciations are "correct," although the former is more common.

Silver Jews, "Seventeen doctors couldn't decide whether I should be allowed in the gime."

That's gotta be a Simpsons nod.

Naked Raygun - Metastasis ("metatastasize")

Silver Jews, "Seventeen doctors couldn't decide whether I should be allowed in the gime."

That's gotta be a Simpsons nod.

I believe someone dared him to sing that line like Mick Jagger.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJ0nFQgRApY

lady marmalard?

― second only to popcorn (or something), jeudi 30 août 2012 15:06 (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Makes sense because that's how you pronouce it in French (she's Creole).

I always wondered why Neil Tennant pronouces years as "yours" in "This Must Be The Place I Waited Years To Leave".
Is that an accent from northern England?

Will you just take a look over there? / Is she tryin' to get outta that clit-AR-is?

(The Stranglers, Peaches)

xpost

His pronounciation of it is closer to "ye-ahs", I think, which to my ears is a posh RP take on the word. Tennant, by force of will I think, doesn't speak with a particularly northern accent.

"whispered in my ear that she's celivent"

Cappadonna in "Camay"

Doesn't Jay Z mispronounce Kanye's name on some of Kanye's earlier productions that he produced for him?

― MarkoP, Thursday, August 30, 2012 12:44 AM (21 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

also Lil B, surely(?) on purpose, in the song "Myspace": Send money through the wire like KAI-yon West / I bounce back, double up, that was all I get?

Tennant does so speak with a Northern accent, btw. Rendered, yes, but

lady marmalard?

― second only to popcorn (or something), jeudi 30 août 2012 15:06 (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Makes sense because that's how you pronouce it in French (she's Creole).

― LeRooLeRoo, Thursday, 30 August 2012 19:27 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I always wondered why Neil Tennant pronouces years as "yours" in "This Must Be The Place I Waited Years To Leave".
Is that an accent from northern England?

― LeRooLeRoo, Thursday, 30 August 2012 19:30 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is exactly how it should work. thank you for your info, that has annoyed me for years but now i'm at peace with it. and yes neil tennant is from the north east of england and that is a credible shout for how "years" could possibly be heard to be pronounced from somebody up that way. i'm struggling to bring it to mind tho and can't be buggered to youtube as in the middle of something.

what is the scientific term for mark e. smith's diction

'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.

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. ⭐

― Manitobiloba (Kim), Monday, 26 December 2016 03:53 (yesterday) Permalink

Wraith is the name of a Rolls-Royce car model

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.

o_0

?

taking a small amount of time to learn how to say something you intend to record yourself saying is a good way to avoid looking like an incurious rube but the counterpoint to that would be wgaf, most of the egs itt add character to the song

With the DK/Disposable Hiphoprisy example it certainly comes off as rubish, since they want the chorus to be a "smart" piece of satire by citing the words of the Nazi-era German national anthem, yet they couldn't be arsed to find out the correct pronounciation. And it's not like it's a long and complex sentence to be memorised, just two short words! (They even get the "alles" more or less correct.)

A lot of anglophones have trouble with ü so it might not be for lack of trying

That's odd, because the "ü" sound is quite similar to the common "ew" sound in English (such as in "few", "screw", "news" etc).

So it basically pronounced ew-behr, shouldn't be too hard.

Then again, lot of English speakers seem to think that "ä" and "ö" are intechangeable with "a" and "o" instead of denoting completely different sounds, so I guess they just assume it's the same with "ü" and "u" instead of bothering to find out?

Breaking up this German pronunciation party, "I am the mod-ren man" from "Mr. Roboto" just came to mind.

It's a fair point but otoh the speaker in the song is a Californian, not a German-speaker. I don't really know what Jerry Brown's usual practice is when pronouncing foreign words, though.
xp

If this is correct, Geddy Lee mispronounces "Barchetta" in "Red Barchetta".

Idk what's going on with that "mod-ren man" thing, yeah.

xxp Wait till the Uber car service people hear about this

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.

― Tuomas

also the very first line of "kill the poor" opens with a blatant subject-verb disagreement. i don't see how jello biafra has any punk credibility at all totally ignoring the basic rules of grammar like that.

Jello is from Colorado, not California.

I know but "California Uber Alles" is sung from the pov of a Californian who plans to establish Cali supremacy, specifically Jerry Brown. The first line of the song is literally "I am Governor Jerry Brown".

So if we're going to concern ourselves with the 'correctness' of Jello Biafra's enunciation,, it might be a more relevant question whether the dialect in the song reflects how a Californian, or even Brown himself, would speak than whether the pronunciation of a German loanword is authentic to the German pronunciation.

these long üs don't sound much different to me

http://joycep.myweb.port.ac.uk/pronounce/audio/tuer.wav

also, if you're the leader of a punk band, it's probably easier to yell "OOO-ber" than "*spits strudel everywhere* yooOOuu-buhrrr"

not singing, but what i find really offensive is every arnold schwarzenegger performance. it's like he doesn't care at all

So if we're going to concern ourselves with the 'correctness' of Jello Biafra's enunciation,, it might be a more relevant question whether the dialect in the song reflects how a Californian, or even Brown himself, would speak than whether the pronunciation of a German loanword is authentic to the German pronunciation.

― My Body's Made of Crushed Little Evening Stars (Sund4r), Tuesday, December 27, 2016 6:32 PM (five hours ago)

uh that's a nice idea in theory, but every single song Jello Biafra sings sounds like Jello Biafra -- he doesn't make any effort to do realistic impressions of others. It's comedy and satire.

I wasn't being entirely serious, just pointing out that I'm not sure that an authentic German pronunciation of "uber" would even be 'correct' in context.

Really, the most interesting thing about this discussion is probably that Tuomas was listening to the Dead Kennedys.

Not really, I found out about that tune via Disposable Heroes sampling it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0sTpZja6JQ

Baby, baby, fawwin' in love
I'm fawwin' in love again
Baby, baby, fawwin' in love
I'm fawwin' in love again
Baby, baby, fawwin' in love
I'm fawwin' in love again
Baby, baby, fawwin' in love
I'm fawwin' in love again

Similarly:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_AA3O66gjI

"Think of Wayne"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VsmF9m_Nt8

Julie Covington on the original Evita concept album kept pronouncing 'descamisados' as "day-camisados"

If Adriano Celentano got it wrong does that mean Mike Reid got it right?

In "Ain't Gonna Feel", Kurt Hauenstein of Supermax invents the word live-able, and then rhymes it with liveable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30P3EuPeNzs

This topic merges nicely with one of my favorites, 'songs where singers have recently learned or become enamored with a particular word and are probably using it for one of the first times ever' (although Seven Mary Three did manage to pronounce 'cowmbersowme' relatively correctly).

But anyway:

Silverchair - 'pure massEEEEEEEEcre'
Sponge - 'it's wax a-static'

Related: Stop trying to make "What's the dillio?" happen: Songs that hitch their wagon to slang of the moment But yeah, grunge rock in particular seemed keen on grabbing hold of 11th grade vocabulary word sheets and just leaning into them hard, with curious results in terms of pronunciation, emphasis, etc.

Donovan, "Sand and Foam": "straining my eyes for a sur-FACING submarine"

i'm very enamored of carl wilson's pronunciation of "enveloping" on "feel flows"

hahaha, yeah that's great

There's a place in this thread for Steve Stills. I'm thinking of 'Isn't It Ay-bout Time?' in particular, but also all those songs where he pronounces 'away' 'ay-way'.

Tori Amos is responsible for some strangulated vowels throughout her career, just one example: "Baker baker, bake me a keek"

Lloyd Cole: "protagonist"

There's a place in this thread for Steve Stills. I'm thinking of 'Isn't It Ay-bout Time?' in particular, but also all those songs where he pronounces 'away' 'ay-way'.

I always wondered about the pronunciation of "around" in Matchbox 20's "Push". It almost sounds like "ay-round" to me. Do people in Florida really pronounce it that way?

Or is it just a byproduct of trying to place lexcial stress on a schwa?

*lexical

Tori Amos is responsible for some strangulated vowels throughout her career, just one example: "Baker baker, bake me a keek"

― Bloody Snail, Sunday, January 15, 2017 4:43 AM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Peace, love, and a hard kyeeeawwwk.

Ha, I had kind of assumed that her vowels had something to do with being Southern too.

I always wondered about the pronunciation of "around" in Matchbox 20's "Push". It almost sounds like "ay-round" to me. Do people in Florida really pronounce it that way?

― My Body's Made of Crushed Little Evening Stars (Sund4r), Sunday, January 15, 2017 9:17 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

no we do not!

Rob Thomas has marked post-yarl pronunciation generally - see "If You're Gorn," "Re-hull World," etc.

Oh my god, listening to 'Perfect Day' just now and realizing for the first time ever that the line is 'drink sangria in the park'. I had no idea what he was saying about the park before because it isn't pronounced 'sanGRAYuh' fer cryin' out loud, Lou (RIP).

^ Yeah that 'sangria' always grates

The chorus, at around 1:07.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a34IWLZJz_M

Tom Barman mispronouncing epigram but it has to fit the music. (dEUS)

Elvis Costello rhyming "pain" with "porcelain" in "You'll Never Be a Man"

The chorus, at around 1:07

i am reasonably certain that's the GREATEST MISPRONOUNCED WORD IN THE HISTORY OF MISPRONOUNCED WORDS.

On Nouvelle Vague's version of "The Guns of Brixton", Camille sings "no need for the black maria", but on the original Paul Simonon sang it as "mariah" (rhymes with pariah).

It's understandable that this happened, since for the Nouvelle Vague project, the producers had the singers cover songs that they'd never heard before. Camille probably had a lyrics sheet where someone transcribed the lyrics as "black maria" and she sang the word using the common pronunciation of that name.

What confuses more is that on Jimmy Cliff's 2012 cover of the same song, he also pronounces it wrong. Maybe he had heard the Nouvelle Vague version?

Incidentally, a black maria is a police van, and wikipedia confirms Paul Simonon's original pronunciation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_van#Black_Maria

Neither of them familiar with Louis Jordan's "Saturday Night Fish Fry" evidently...

Now they got us out of there like a house afire
Put us all in that Black Maria

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0shfkw2mAXs

they call the wind Mariaaaaaaa

Bjork mispronouncing "ghetto blaster" on 'There's More to Life Than This' ...

the vocalist is german so it's understandable but "Rodeo Drive" has the wrong pronunciation in the opiates' "anatomy of a plastic girl"

Proud Mary -- Big wheel keep on toining, proud Mary keep on boining

lol yeah Fogerty's borrowed New Orleans Yat pronunciation.

That's odd, because the "ü" sound is quite similar to the common "ew" sound in English (such as in "few", "screw", "news" etc).

This still mystifies me. Sounds to me like Jello sings "oober" which is the same sound as in "screw", and "ü" is not pronounced like "ew" anyway.

Is there another way to pronounce the name "Deirdre" that I am not aware of, or are the Beach Boys pulling a "texas chainsaw massacree" bit here?

How should it be pronounced?

I know at least one Deirdre, and she pronounces it "dear-druh," and that's how I've always heard it pronounced

It's usually pronounced Deirdri over here.

Arlo Guthrie - "Coming Into Los Angel-eees"

Seems wrong, but what do I know, I live on the est coast.

In "Tupelo Honey," Van Morrison rhymes "insight" with "granite," and I don't think that's a dialect thing at all.

I've heard "gran-ight" once in a blue moon, out in the world, but remain unclear on whether it's actually an accepted pronunciation in any region or community.

Arlo Guthrie - "Coming Into Los Angel-eees"

Seems wrong, but what do I know, I live on the est coast.

― henry s, Friday, December 15, 2023 10:16 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

the correct way is how Sam Elliott pronounces it in THE BIG LEBOWSKI

I’ve been obsessed for years with how Sam Elliott enunciates “Sacramento” in this one Coors commercial

Manic Street Preachers when they made a new album from Richey's notebooks years after he vanished:

"Shards, shards,
the androgyny fails,
Odalisque by Ingres, extra bones for sale"

sabotaged maybe the best lyric on the album by pronouncing Ingres so that it rhymes with 'embrace'.

Camera Obscura's Tracyanne Campbell on "I Missed Your Party" pronounces Billy Joel as Billy "jo-EL".

xp Ingres rhymes with Hongro, right?

David Sylvian in "The Devil's Own"...

"the ticking of the clock in-ex-OR-a-bly goes on"

I recall Green Gartside saying he only learnt how to pronounce Jacques Derrida correctly after he'd recorded and released the song

xxp Uhh YES, yes it does!! ROFL!

wait, how are you pronouncing Ingres/Hongro for them to rhyme?

correctly

Ingres should be pronounced 'Ang%#'

"o" is apparently pronounced "ooh" in Norwegian, and "ø" is the u sound in "ur"

gonna start calling Ingres "Oongrur" (ok I will probably never say Ingres out loud ever, but if I do)

You mean it isn't pronounced HANG-grə?

Another painter: on Game Theory's "Chardonnay", Scott Miller sings, "gonna take Ernst, Dali and De Chirico", pronounced "CHEER-i-co". Funny, since he had been a student of painting.

"o" is apparently pronounced "ooh" in Norwegian

can confirm as I once heard a pack of teenage girls in Bergen shout "YOOLOO"