Misplaced stress

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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
duhSIT
if I KNOW
a-NY ex-IT
if i BEH-lieve in GOD
and 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.

enochroot, Wednesday, 26 September 2018 21:23 (six years ago)

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)


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