"That's the Way I Am, Heaven Help Me": The Role of Pronunciation in Billy Bragg's Music
Abstract
British singers do not always sound British. Indeed, it is common—and sometimes expected—for singers in a variety of styles and genres to sing with accents that do not match their speech. The specific phenomenon of British (or more precisely, English) popular musicians singing with Americanized pronunciation is so common that it was the point of departure for an entire subfield of sociolinguistics that is focused on the ‘singing accent’ in popular music: the pronunciation patterns that singers use in their singing and how these differ from the pronunciation patterns these singers use in speech (e.g., Trudgill 1983). Nevertheless, some English singers do sound distinctly and unapologetically English, and one example is left-wing protest singer Billy Bragg.
This dissertation explores the role of the singing accent in the music of Billy Bragg. The methodology borrows from sociolinguistics and is primarily based on phonetic analysis. Phonetic transcriptions of six songs by Billy Bragg are used to compare his pronunciation features to the norms and expectations associated with categories such as musical style, place of origin, and socioeconomic background. Bragg’s pronunciation is considered in three contexts: singing his own original words and music, singing a cover, and singing his own music to words he did not write. These analyses show how pronunciation has served Bragg in creating a musical and public identity, how musical considerations can affect pronunciation (and vice versa), how pronunciation can reinforce and accentuate other musical features, and how pronunciation can be used to create a character.
While pronunciation is a part of vocal music, it has not received extensive attention from music theorists. This dissertation demonstrates the value of using pronunciation as a starting point for musical analysis, and the value of phonetic analysis as an analytical methodology. It also provides a framework for considering Billy Bragg, a singer who has not been a frequent subject of study by music scholars.