The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #65481 Message #2957002
Posted By: Genie
02-Aug-10 - 06:40 PM
Thread Name: Worst singing accent.
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
Don, I think there's a big difference between trying to sing "Carrickfergus" with an affected Irish accent and singing a song like "Twa Heids Are Better Than Yin" with at least some semblance of a Scots accent. The latter is written in dialect, including some Scots words, and to me it sounds weird if sung with a midwestern US accent except for those few words (not to mention that it screws up some of the rhymes).
Same goes for some American songs, such as the part of Loretta Lynn's "Coal Miner's Daughter," where she deliberately rhymes "hard" with "tard" ("tired).
And 'ow do you do "'Enery The Eighth" without putting on something like a Cockney accent?
Just saying I think some songs, like some roles in plays, are meant to be done with an accent. If you can't do that accent perfectly, I don't think it means you shouldn't ever perform that song or role.
And depending on who your audience is, they may or may not know the difference.
That said, I probably wouldn't go to another country and try to entertain the people there by doing their own songs. And I'd steer clear of performing an "accent" for people for whom it was second nature.
Dick Van Dyke's accent in Mary Poppins doesn't stand out like a sore thumb to me like it does to some others because I don't hear a real Cockney accent all that often. But I wonder how many Brits can tell a New Yawk accent from a Joisey one? Or S. Carolina from Georgia from Alabama?