{"id":2211,"date":"2009-06-15T14:31:37","date_gmt":"2009-06-15T18:31:37","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2009-06-15T14:31:37","modified_gmt":"2009-06-15T14:31:37","slug":"regional-dialects-in-rock-songs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/regional-dialects-in-rock-songs\/","title":{"rendered":"Regional Dialects in Rock Songs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/8E7nv83KAIw?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\nIt may be argued that this thread is nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt at railing against three Red Sox fans at this past Saturday&#8217;s Phillies-Red Sox game at Citizens Bank Park. I can assure you that musical content is all that I have on my mind, but if you don&#8217;t believe me, let me begin by railing at these three 25-year-old yuppie New Englanders who made it to Philadelphia to root for their home team.<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\nI&#8217;ve always said that I have no beef with anyone rooting for their hometown team in an opponent&#8217;s ballpark. I did so with <strong>Townsman Andyr<\/strong>, cheering on our Phillies just a few weeks ago at new <strong>Yankee Stadium<\/strong>. We were pretty vocal but tried to keep it within good spirits and with respect to the Yankees&#8217; fans, especially young Yankees rooters who should not be exposed to blue language while cheering on their men in blue pinstripes. I don&#8217;t work blue in front of the kids, man, but that&#8217;s not my main beef with the three young stockbrokers from the Boston area who were yelling stuff that would make a fishwife blush. (Truth be told, I don&#8217;t even know what a fishwife is, but growing up in my family fishwives were commonly referred to as the sort of foul-mouthed people whose 4-letter vocabulary we should not follow.) <\/p>\n<p>My beef had to do with these fools turning up their stereotypical regional dialect as the <em>Sawx<\/em> poured it on against a rookie pitcher making his third start with an atypically sleepwalking defense behind him and rain pouring down. When the Red Sox jumped out to a quick lead thanks to a <strong>Jason Bay<\/strong> home run, this prematurely balding trio of fans was appropriately enthusiastic, displaying mild traces of their regional accent. Then, as the deluge (both literal and metaphorical) ensued, they started playing up their accent, as if to drive home their recently acquired pride in their hometown team, which they likely ignored while trying to band drunken undergrads in the years before 2004. <em>Bahstahn!!!<\/em> they started shouting. <em>Sawx!!!<\/em> Everything they said kept coming out more like the lamest stereotypes of the Boston accent. Honestly, I would have had no beef with them if they naturally spoke in this accent. For 15 minutes they sounded like educated, enthusiastic Red Sox fans appropriately excited over the good fortune of their team to be playing a World Series defending champion that showed up as if it had hit <em>Snooze<\/em> a few too many times. Then, for the next 20 minutes they turned on an accent that sounded like an ex-New England high school production of <em>Fever Pitch<\/em>, maybe a production by some high school in Davenport, Iowa. It was painful to hear, maybe the only thing in that park more painful than the Phillies&#8217; opening-inning performance and the promise of a 90-minute rain delay.<\/p>\n<p>But that&#8217;s not why I&#8217;m posting today. What I&#8217;d like to hear is an example of an <em>artist from your region who you feel best represents your regional accent<\/em> in his or her music and, if one exists, an <em>artist who poorly represents your regional accent<\/em>, similar to those Boston-area yuppies who played up a facsimile of the Boston accent and likely embarrased true Bostonians who come by that accent sincerely, without sounding as bad as regional dialects look in print. This excercise may be especially helpful for those of us outside your region. For instance, <strong>Townsman BigSteve<\/strong>, with his Louisianna roots, may be best able to to tell us where <strong>Dr. John<\/strong> (aka The Night Tripper, not our very own Townsman by that handle) falls on this spectrum. <\/p>\n<p>Following the rain delay, if you&#8217;re curious, these losers moved onto another standing-room-only section of the park and likely annoyed\/embarrassed others in attendance. I spent the rest of the weekend searching my soul to see if I ever play up my trace of Philly accent for some imagined added street cred. My wife said my exclusive wearing of Phillies garb and existing on a diet of cheesesteaks, hoagies, and soft pretzels during last year&#8217;s postseason run was just as bad as these clowns trying to come off like &#8220;Southies&#8221; (or whatever Matt Damon and Ben Affleck played in that mediocre coming-of-age movie that put them on the map), but I disagreed, saying that I was just being a real fan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It may be argued that this thread is nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt at railing against three Red Sox fans at this past Saturday&#8217;s Phillies-Red Sox game at Citizens Bank Park. I can assure you that musical content is all that I have on my mind, but if you don&#8217;t believe me, let <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/regional-dialects-in-rock-songs\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2211"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2211"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2211\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}