The recent thread about posh accents in music got me thinking about the accents of the punk/New Wave era. There seemed to be a convention that in 1977 you had to speak a bit cockney or a like geezer such as Jimmy Pursey or Danny Baker. Listening to some old Mekons, Gang of Four and Delta 5 sessions it struck me how all these privately educated kids were putting on these right-on ‘”awright innit” accents. Suppose the same applied to folk like Strummer and Hugh Cornwell (PhD). What brought this home was Yorkshireman Graeme Fellowes telling 6 Music that he sang Jilted John that way because it was the ‘patois’ of the time. Any other examples?
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johnw says
Elvis Costello’s accent has changed a lot over the years, in 1977 he had a very ‘lahndan’ accent but it’s now far more (probably naturally) liverpudlian even though I don’t think he’s lived in Liverpool in the interim.
Although it doesn’t apply to Hugh Cornwell, there’s no reason why a someone with a cockney accent shouldn’t earn themselves a PhD.
Moose the Mooche says
Good lord! Are there not rules against that sort of thing?
(sorry, still in posh mode)
ernietothecentreoftheearth says
No reason at all why someone with a Cockney accent shouldn’t get a PhD. But I doubt that Cornwall very had a Cockney accent anymore than, say, Bernard Jenkin ( the Tory MP) David Aaronovitch or Orlando Figes, who all went to the same school.
hubert rawlinson says
Not forgetting Richard Thompson also at the same school and in the same school band as Cornwell.
Harry Tufnell says
I’m just listening to a 1981 promo where Elvis Costello introduces each song on Almost Blue and he doesn’t have a trace of accent at all, when I saw him in Liverpool he was full on scouse but recent shows and his audiobook have seen the arrival of a mid-Atlantic drawl.
Moose the Mooche says
Live b-side of Watching the Detectives, the first recorded evidence of EC & the Attractions:
“This one’s cawled Mistree Dawnce!”
Dave Ross says
Wellers Woking accent??????
Black Celebration says
It is a Woking accent. Not sure I follow.
Dave Ross says
Was it a punk accent?
Black Celebration says
I don’t think it’s an affected singing accent, if that’s what you mean. I suppose it helps that he came through at a time when it had become OK to sing like that. But to my ears anyway, when he talks and when he sings – there is not a lot of difference.
Moose the Mooche says
Dis is der Saaaaaarnd uv der Saabberrbs!
Alias says
I saw Temple Tutor in a bar in London. He ordered a bottle of champagne in an extremely posh accent
Moose the Mooche says
Temple Tutor – he had a hit with Sores of a Household Glen, according BBC News subtitling.
Sewer Robot says
Not the most successful of musicians, he made his millions by inventing the Wonderbra..
ernietothecentreoftheearth says
The longer version of his name – Edward Tudor Pole -may throw some light on that one.
Rigid Digit says
Apparent lineage to the Royal House of Tudor
(although I did read somewhere, that this was complete bunk)
Moose the Mooche says
Yeah right. In other news, the Average White Band’s Hamish Stuart is heir to the throne of Scotland.
Black Celebration says
I think the OP makes a good observation, the London-area accent was quite prevalent in punk because it sounds Hard when delivered aggressively. Peter Skellern singing Pretty Vacant may not have conveyed the same energy.
And it’s all down to Sex Pistols influence. They were one of the few bands that people actually wanted to copy and for a while it was kind of OK to do that. Oasis were a bit like that too.
There have been plenty of London bands singing in their own accents, but as you travel away, the examples become thinner on the ground. Novelty acts like The Wurzels and, erm, Paul Gascoigne spring to mind. Perhaps these are the only West Country and Geordie accents ever to grace the charts? Hell’s teeth that’s a bit sad isn’t it?
Feargal Sharkey, Morrissey and David Gedge deserve honourable mentions for keeping it real.
Moose the Mooche says
See also, from the era in the OP, the Rezillos.
“Do ah luke up too deet?”
Rigid Digit says
Still in the world of novelty: Brummie clearly visible (aurally noticeable?) on Jasper Carrott’s Funky Moped
“When I got me moped out on the road I’m gonna roide roide roide”
deramdaze says
How was Mick Jagger talking?
That’s how they were talking.
Johnny Concheroo says
I fink I busted a button on me trousers, hope they don’t fall down
You don’t want my trousers to fall down now do you?
Moose the Mooche says
Levi Strauss’s good tonoight innee?
Sewer Robot says
I like it when the accent makes the rhyme e.g. Clare Grogan:
I would like to climb high in a tree
Or go to Skye for my holidee