A lot of them do it. Love and Rockets gets right in your face with it in So Alive. Graham Parker does it 3 tiimes in Gypsy Blood! They don’t do it to make a rhyme or to fit in with the rhythm of the song. And it’s obviously not a slip of the lip. So why the hell do they do it?
Because ng is hard to sing. To make it you have to kind of close your throat. Few pop singers appear to have voice training but it could just be instinctive.
Or, they want to sound down home and country.
They don’t want to sound…square?
:rolleyes:
It makes a super nasal and annoying sound in a sensitive mike, especially if you have to hold the note. A plain “n” sound is much more pleasant and easier to boot.
Okay, I just went to youtube and did a search “everything” and came up with this song. Although I don’t care for the singer or song he clearly says everything, and I didn’t find it annoying at all. A singer dropping the g sounds very harsh to me and breaks the mood. Case in point: the above Graham Parker song in the OP.
But I guess I’ll just have to live with it, huh?
Missed the edit window. Here’s the link to the song I mentioned
Every singer is different and their voices will all sound different over equipment. Someone who’s well trained will be better able to enunciate clearly while singing and holding a note, whereas someone with raw ability with little training (like me!) will usually find ways of cheating to get a good sound. I can handle listening to the dropped “g” much more easily than enduring even a second of autotuned vocals, that just makes me insta-stabby.
Then there’s that joker who made sure damn we all knew he wasn’t dropping the ‘G’.
“Every little things, gonna be allright.”…which reminded me that Sting in his affected voice also says “Every little thing she does is magic”
Even for actual song titles, it goes back at least as far as “Singin’ In the Rain” and “Makin’ Whoopee”. God knows why.
I always hear an “is” in Three Little Birds–like, “every little thing [beat] is gonna be all right.”
In the song titles, I think that’s just being vernacular rather than it being a pronunciation issue.
And I think the “i” is also a lot of the issue, which is why you get Eddie Vedder and his “of what was ever-THANG” thang. “I” sound is produced with your mouth mostly closed and that don’t resonate much.
They sing it because we say it. Maybe not you personally, but any southern accent says it. If Lynyrd Skynyrd sang the word “everything”, fully pronounced, I’d be asking who the guest vocalist is.
Marley is saying “thins” not things. Go listen again. Sometimes his backup singers say the g. Sting goes back and forth between “thin” and “thing” saying “thin” on the first line where he lands on “thing” longer but thing on the faster “everthing she do just turns me on”
The g will get dropped more frequently when the not is held or actually sung to a pitch. Bryan Adams is mostly speaking. It’s actually how singers are taught to sing, so you see it more from people who have some formal training. Just like ending “s” sounds usually get turned into “z” sounds.
Unless you are really listening for it, especially if its in an accent not your own, your brain just auto fills the right sound.
But, but, can you imagine the immortal Ray Stevens going “Every-thin is beautiful”?!?!?!? :eek:
Pearls clutched.
Then there’s thang.
While I don’t think any of the answers here are wrong, per se, I do think that, more than anything, it’s a stylistic choice.
Sure, “ng” can be hard to sing without it sounding all pressed and nasal, but it is possible, same as with “m” and “n.” And there’s no inherent reason to elongate the sound. The reason to do so would be that it’s part of the style to hold out your nasals.
There is just a certain casualness of dialect or accent in many styles of music, and changing multisyllable -ing words to -in’ words fits that intention quite well. It’s already a normal feature of the English language in many dialects (including ones that don’t think they do it, but do it when speaking quickly). So it doesn’t sound unnatural.
Well, I say it’s a normal feature, but I’d say that normally only applies to -ing verbs. That may be why “everythin’” sounds so weird to the OP, but they didn’t object to “tryin’” or “dyin’” in that Bryan Adams song.
And, appropriately, “everything” is less likely to have the G dropped than those -ing verbs.
Wow thats EXACTLY what i did ( i did listen to Sting before i posted…so i dont know) but on Marley I just filled in an accent in my head and assumed he was saying “theeng” both times.
OP here. I can’t really explain why, but sometimes it’s okay dropping the g and sometimes it’s not. In normal speech it goes pretty much unnoticed, as in “singin’ in the shower this mornin’”. But," everythin’s okay", just doesn’t work. Same goes for singing. It’s just too much in your face. It always seems to be that particular word. Everything. Everythin". Why that one damn word!
Like I said before, I’m going to have to live with it…but I don’t have to like it. 
Off the top of my head I can’t recall ever noticing it in song but it’s one of my (many) pet peeves when listening to people speak.
Well, when I do it, it’s because my accent. I don’t enunciate the g at the end of a lot of words when I speak (sorry, WOOKNPANUB). I’ve noticed a lot of English classic rock singers sound very much like they’re from the southern US when they sing. I think some of it is from people intentionally or unintentionally imitating their influences.
No, *I’m *sorry, scabpicker; that was rude of me to say:o If it makes you feel better, I have problems with the way most people talk; my fault (misophonia) not theirs.