"Me used to be angry a man": Northern English dialects

Factual Questions
1

NB: I put this question in GQ because I am looking for a definite factual answer, but if this thread somehow winds up in CS I won’t object.

You know that bit in the Beatles’ song “Getting Better” where they sing this bit, right? My question is whether that use of “me” is common in any Northern dialects. The normal declension of the first person singular, as we all know, is this:

Nominative: I
Objective: Me
Possessive: My/Mine

Several English dialects don’t use “My”, so they have this:

Nom: I
Obj: Me
Pos: Me/Mine

I think this is common in Scouse, so this is probably the Beatles’ most natural way of talking.

But how or why did they come up with this declension in the song?

Nom: Me
Obj: Me
Pos: Me/mine

Does “me” replace “I” in any dialects? Or did they just write it that way because it seemed to work better musically? That would make sense. “I used to be angry a man” somehow doesn’t seem to work as well.

2

I don’t think it’s altogether a Northern England saying “me”

F’rinstance, there is a kind of science programme on TV and during it members of the public say “I can do science, me”.

As for your opening statement, I would have thought that “I used to be an angry man, me” is more appropriate.

3

I’ve never heard of “I” being replaced by “me”, and I’ve lived in the North all my life. Wigan’s fairly close to Merseyside (St. Helen’s is a bordering town) and knew a few Scousers in school, and never heard them say it.

What often happens is “my” being pronounced like “me”, as in “pass me me wallet” (I think this is what you’re describing in your second point, but I’m not well up on technical names for parts of speech).

In fact, I’ve just listened to the relevant part of “Getting Better” and I’m sure the line is: “we used to be angry and mad, me hiding my head in the sand”, which makes more sense…

4

Now, I’ve always understood the lyrics to be “Me used to be angry young man/Me hiding me head in the sand”, and that’s the way it’s printed elswhere, but I could be wrong.

To my knowledge, no Northern English dialect replaces “I” with “me”, nor does any other English dialect.

What it does sound like is an attempt at Jamaican speech patterns.

5

The lyric is 'Me used to be…"

I think John probably thought it sounded better.

Me family’s from ooop north and I’ve never heard that.

6

OK, I’m still not convinced that he sings “me” instead of “we”. Did McCartney ever actually say anything about this? I realise that the sleeve notes say “me used to be angry young man”, but it wouldn’t be the first time an “official” transcription got a lyric wrong (every official tab book that I have is filled with errors, for instance).

I’ve listened to the particular line over and over, through my desktop speakers, laptop speakers and earphones. Listen to the difference in the pronunciation of the first word in “? used to be angry and mad…” and “me hiding my head in the sand”. The “?” is sang as I’d sing “we” and is definitely not the same sound as “me” (in fact he also sings “my” as “me” as well, like I’d sing).

I’m probably wrong, though :stuck_out_tongue:

7

The Wurzels (3 meg mp3)

8

No, no sign of the nominative “me” in the Wurzels song either. Solid scientific evidence that it is not a feature of west country dialects either. And it’s not in RP or Estuary, so that essentially leaves East Anglia. But even if they do say “me went to Norwich” there, I seriously doubt that that was the effect McCartney was aiming for (for it was he). More likely, as WotNot said, is that he was trying to sound cool and Caribbean.

9

Interestingly, the Wikipedia item on this song claims that Lennon contributed that verse, which makes sense to me – it sounds like his sentiment, and his love of word-play.

Whichever one of them wrote it, I think we can be pretty confident that they were both listening to Ska and Reggae around that time, since they recorded “Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da” the following year. So, yeah, I’m going to stick with the Jamaican hypothesis.

10

Its common for ‘me’ used instead of ‘my’ (e.g. “oi! he’s stealing me bike”). I’ve never heard it instead of me (Though as previous posters have pointed out Jamaican Patois seems to invert “I” and “me” alot.).

Another variation thats common (particularly in the north) using the plural where you’d expect the singular. e.g.:

“Pass us that screwdriver” (I’ve picked up that one which makes for some comments here in the states about )
“Our kid” (e.g. my brother)
“Shut up yous” (kinda of like “you all” in southern US parlance, also the scouse version of “silence of the lambs” :slight_smile: )

Presumably the last one is a vestige of some other language which has a plural “you”.