I'm normally pretty tolerant of misplaced stress on the syllables in a pop song -- I mean, sometimes you just gotta do what it takes to make the lyrics fit.But after listening to the Christine and the Queens episode of Song Exploder, I've realized that I have my limits.
She breaks down her song, "It Doesn't Matter", and it's almost as if she's purposely inverting the syllable accents.
it DOESn't MA-TTER duhSITif I KNOW a-NY ex-ITif i BEH-lieve in GODand if GOD does ex-IST
https://youtu.be/UCwD5f1APTY?t=60
Are there other egregious examples of this?
This is probably more likely when a non-native English speaker is writing lyrics in English -- French has a much more flat accent pattern than English, which could explain why Christine didn't too think much of it.
― enochroot, Wednesday, 26 September 2018 21:23 (six years ago)
Another one I thought of is "Blank Space".The line "got a long list of ex-lovers" had the stress pattern so badly mangled that everyone famously heard it as "all the lonely starbuck's lovers". There's a decent chance Max Martin put those lyrics to that melody, which could explain it, since his first language would be Swedish.
can only imagine there are a bunch of threads on this topic
― niels, Thursday, 27 September 2018 10:10 (six years ago)
Speak like A child
― Daniel Giraffe, Thursday, 27 September 2018 12:27 (six years ago)
It makes sense with the Christine & The Queens album because all the songs were recorded in French first and the translation and phrasing don't quite work in English, but there's a need to keep all other aspects of the song the same.
The Manic Street Preachers were abysmal at this for most of the 90s, they might still be.
― Matt DC, Thursday, 27 September 2018 13:48 (six years ago)
The French place equal emphasis on every syllable iirc
― i know kore-eda (or something), Thursday, 27 September 2018 15:05 (six years ago)
The line in All Along the Watchtower that goes "Nobody OF it is WORTH" is doubly annoying because it is both mangled syntax and misplaced stress.
― Inuit innuendo (Ye Mad Puffin), Thursday, 27 September 2018 15:20 (six years ago)