Beatles speaking accents

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from the John Lennon Tomorrow Show interview from 1975

LENNON: "We were the first working class singers that stayed working class, and pronounced it...didn't try and change our accents, which in England were looked down upon, probably still are...like a Bronx accent, it's equivalent to that, y'know."

I knew the Beatles were working class, poor Liverpool boys, but I didn't realize that others looked down upon them for their accent. Is there validity in what he's saying, or was he just being paranoid?

― Zachary Scott (Zach S), Thursday, 19 October 2006 17:56 (twenty years ago)

The kind of people who would look down on them for having working class accents would be too busy looking down on them for being long-haired pop musicians to care about the accents.

― James Herbert Dip (noodle vague), Thursday, 19 October 2006 17:59 (twenty years ago)

I guess it was more a matter of them being considered funny in London because they had those "provincial" scouse accents.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Thursday, 19 October 2006 20:54 (twenty years ago)

The second episode of that interview has quite an odd feel to it: Tom Snyder seems to want to dwell on the groupie scene just a bit too much.

― Bob Six (bobbysix), Thursday, 19 October 2006 21:38 (twenty years ago)

this is bullshit. i've heard macca talk about how they were always asked why they sang in american accents and his reply was something along the lines of "well that's just the rock'n'roll way of singing - everyone sings like that".

― wogan lenin (dog latin), Thursday, 19 October 2006 22:37 (twenty years ago)

After their early interviews, apparently Paul's family were all "why are you talking like that for?" as they were much more 'middle class' than that. The only actual working class lad was George. For Liverpool, that is, of course.

― mark grout (mark grout), Thursday, 19 October 2006 23:09 (twenty years ago)

Ringo was from the Dingle!

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Thursday, 19 October 2006 23:11 (twenty years ago)

so is he talking about their spoken accents or their singing accents? i assume he's talking about spoken.

(also note, for the historical record, that he quickly corrects "bronx accent" to "brooklyn accent.")

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Thursday, 19 October 2006 23:15 (twenty years ago)

John was very obviously working class. McCartney obviously had a very middle class family background, even though it was clearly lower middle class.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Thursday, 19 October 2006 23:41 (twenty years ago)

I believe John, living with his aunt, was the most well off, actually. Both of Paul's parents worked and they lived in an industrial estate until he was thirteen.

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Thursday, 19 October 2006 23:56 (twenty years ago)

yeh. lennon was very middle class but did his best not to show it. macca on the other hand was working class.

― wogan lenin (dog latin), Thursday, 19 October 2006 23:59 (twenty years ago)

Must say, Geir, given many of the statements you make on ILM, that it is sort of classic that you would have assumed the opposite of the reality, in this case, to have been so "obvious." How is someone to interpret your statements other than that they reflect obvious classism (i.e., McCartney as the sophisticate, in your interpretation, meaning that he "obviously had a very middle class background")?

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Friday, 20 October 2006 00:27 (twenty years ago)

it's an easy mistake o make. john always liked to make himself seem a bit more rough around the edges in every way, musically and sartorially whereas paul was always seen as a baby-faced innocent lad. also "roking class hero" etc..

― wogan lenin (dog latin), Friday, 20 October 2006 00:34 (twenty years ago)

On accents: Lennon wrong, Wogan OTM. Peter Trudgill wrote a great, great article that gave a statistical analysis of the Beatles mimicking US singing pronunciation, especially in the early 60's, when their chosen genre had an American accent. Stones did the same, but to a lesser extent.

On class and rock: the middle class kids usually try to sound working class. Obviously.

― dad a (dad a), Friday, 20 October 2006 01:50 (twenty years ago)

They were Scousers, which meant that everyone else in England COULD look down on them.

― andyjack (andyjack), Friday, 20 October 2006 14:43 (twenty years ago)

Ringo was the only real working class one, he was rough as a badger's arse. McCartney was at school with Peter Sissons. And Lennon was a posh Auntie's boy until he discovered rock and roll.

― Diddumsismus (Dada), Friday, 20 October 2006 14:47 (twenty years ago)

Does that mean Jimmy Tarbuck's posh too?

― ONIMO's lips can't feel! (GerryNemo), Friday, 20 October 2006 14:51 (twenty years ago)

I remember Alan Bleasdale on Wogan (the chat show, not the nom de post of ILX regular) in the late '80s mocking John Lennon's "Working Class Hero" - "he grew up in Woolton Village - I still can't afford to buy a house in Woolton now".

Yes, they were 3/4ths middle-class Liverpool. Lennon's accent ("rattle your jewellery") was unusually thick for his background (but nothing like the Brooky twang most non-Merseysiders think of as Scouse today).

Any kind of Scouse accent in the public arena was unusual in the early '60s though - it was enough in Z Cars that the actors just had vaguely Northern vowels.

― Michael Jones (MichaelJ), Friday, 20 October 2006 15:01 (twenty years ago)

McCartney was at school with Peter Sissons.

He and George had an hour bus ride to school from Speke. They were working class families. The McCartneys moved to an area called Allerton when he was thirteen - Paul says, "It was quite a middle class area where we were, but they'd built a council estate in the middle of all the posh houses."

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Friday, 20 October 2006 16:43 (twenty years ago)

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