‘When I’m On The Street Where You Live’ from ‘My Fair Lady’
people stop and stare, they don’t bather me
for there’s nowhere else on earth that I would rather be…
Quite apart from the fact that the singer is supposed to be an English aristocrat, so he wouldn’t be on the street, he would be in the street. :mad:
Was it something by Eddie Murphy?
If I’m not mistaken, that’s Eddie Murphy mangling that song.
That would be Party All the Time, by Eddie Murphy. Yes, Eddie Murphy the comedian. Not too bad as a singer, certainly no worse than Don Johnson. ::shudder::
Aaaaand, thats what I get for fishing for a link - a simulpost ahead of me!
No names, but I can’t stand the ones that try to use the sleepy, breathy pronunciation of “Yuh-oh” instead of “You.” Usually, it’s some low rent band trying to sound like Kurt Cobain, or somebody cool.
hh
I opened this thread just to mention this line. It cracks me up every time I hear the song. What the hell is a Tor-TOYSE?
I really like Joan Jett, but the way she pronounces “me” as “may” in “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll” annoys me. Or perhaps I should say that it annoys may.
“and IIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEIIIIIIIEEEEIIIIIIIEEEEEIIIIIII will always love YEEWWWWWEWWWWEEWWWWWWWW!!!”
stfu already, Whitless, or I’ma ask Bobby to bitch slap you again.
like 90% of Alanis Morisette songs.
Also, there’s one by Bif Naked- it’s a great song, but at one point she starts singing “DeeeeaaaaaRRR DeeeeaaaaaRRR”… it’s actually a correct pronunciaton, I suppose, but the emphasis on the R makes it sound horribly harsh, as does the drawn out-ness of it.
In Wicked, Kristen Chenoweth pronounces “friend” “freeand” which bugs the crap out of me.
As stated, it’s how some British and Irish people pronounce “tortoise”.
Wasn’t My Fair Lady originally a Broadway production? In which case, the odd Americanism can surely be excused 
Anything by Blink 182. I really hope it’s affected and not an actual accent that the lead singer has.
For your reading pleasure, here is a similar thread I started a couple years ago:
Sir Rhosis
I hat the way Kelsey Grammar sings that “Scrambled Eggs” song on “Frasier.” Total minstrel show.
Leann Rimes sings “How Do I Live Without You” as “How Do I Leeeev Without You.”
I suppose I should have carved out a separate category for the OTT “phrasings” that have carried the day in a certain segment of R&B/American Idol-inflected music, in which it has now been decided that wailing “diva” stylings are indicative of “feeling” (feeling being the be-all-end-all of music, if you’re a 13 year old girl as our tastemakers seem to assume we all are).
Perhaps I ought to have also included carve-outs for the entire oeuvres of:
(1) pale Anglo-Saxons trying to sound like Delta Bluesmen; and conversely
(2) American suburbanites trying to sound like Manchester punks (Greenday).
FTR, Greenday sound 100% American from where I’m sitting. Most Brits, conversely, try to sing like Yanks.
How does Tom Jones shape up?
This site http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/articles/051114ta_talk_seabrook says “Brooklynese” is spoken in some communities in New Orleans. I can’t find a better cite, but I went searching because I feel so certain that I’ve heard this usage in New Orleans jazz before. Though, again, I have no better cite than my certainty.
-FrL-
Just wanted to point out–I said I can’t find a better cite, but hey, this is William Labov being quoted at the cite I gave…
I just noticed, also, that other sites generated by a google of “bird boid dialect south” give some credence to the claim that the “oi” accent isn’t just from Brooklyn. There’s someone saying she hears it in Charleston, and someone else saying she hears it in Atlanta.
-Kris