Several months ago, I watched the Joy Division documentary* and was set to thinking when Peter Hook mentioned that Ian Curtis sang in an American accent. This is something I’d never really thought about before. I guess being an American teenager when I was first introduced to Joy Division, it didn’t sound unusual to me to hear singing in an American accent. Thinking about it now, though, it seems strange that this Mancunian fellow would adopt a non-specific American accent to sing his songs in.

He certainly wasn’t the first Brit to try out an American accent, of course. Mick Jagger often sings with a Southern accent caricature when he wants you to know he’s singing a country song.

Similarly The Beatles often aped the cadence of their favorite blues artists. But who was Ian Curtis trying to emulate? Midwest newscasters?

The accent swap works the other way, too, but not as often. Americans will often sing in a non-rhotic accent that sounds slightly Anglo, but isn’t quite a full British accent. I ran the sound board for a middle school Christmas pageant several years ago and I remember the music teacher instructing her kids not to pronounce their “r’s.” The resulting mid-Atlantic accent was somewhat comical coming from the mouths of inner city kids. I don’t think anybody thought that was unusual but me, though. But if they had used a proper British accent, people surely would have noticed. It would have sounded ridiculous. I think this is why you rarely hear an American sing in a British accent. With one exception: Punk rock.

There are lots of bands who influenced punk rock, but if you were to pick the one band that really defined the genre, it would be The Ramones. And for some reason, Joey Ramone decided to sing British**.

When The Sex Pistols ripped off The Ramones, they didn’t even have to think about the accent. And when Green Day ripped off the Sex Pistols the circle was complete. Even though it’s an accepted tradition for Americans to adopt a British accent for punk rock, it still sounds funny to me. A number of years ago, I recorded a band in Austin who had songs sung by each member of the band. The last song we tracked vocals for was the first song sung by the drummer and I was somewhat stunned when he ditched his drawl to sound more like Johnny Rotten. After the first take, I headed out to the mound to have a little conference with him and encourage him not to sing like that. He honestly had no idea that he had changed his accent. The other band members, I think, were afraid to say anything to him.

Anyway, I don’t know where I’m going with this post and I guess it was just an elaborate way to set up this link I found with David Lee Roth singing the entirety of Eat ‘Em and Smile in Spanish. This impresses me and I encourage our Spanish speaking contributor to critique his accent. ¿Hace que suene como un gringo?

In other news, here is a new Beck project covering The Velvet Underground:

And Nixon talking about his favorite music.

*It’s a good documentary, if you’re at all into Joy Division, and it appears somebody has put it on YouTube.

**Interestingly, U2 covered this song and Bono re-Americanized the accent.