We’d be really interested in hearing how well you think singing operatically in a Northern accent works. Over the course of the project Ian McMillan and I wrote four songs using Ian’s own Barnsley accent. Here are links to videos of them being performed by singers Nick Sales (tenor), Zoe Milton Brown (soprano), Sarah Helsby Hughes (soprano) and Tom Eaglen (baritone), with John Wilson at the piano.
We’d love it if you could listen to one or more of the songs, and then let us know what you think with this short survey. The whole thing will take about 5 minutes if you listen to one song all the way through. We’ll be thinking about your responses when we write the full opera later this year and early 2016! Thanks so much!
1. Like Me Dad
Me mam said he had a lovely voice
‘like an angel in a cap’ she said once
‘like an angel in a cap’ she said twice
You could hear him singing in the bathroom
Voice rising to the steaming ceiling
An angel with a watery body
He opened his mouth as wide as a shout
And his voice flew right out of the window
Circled round the yard like a pigeon
When we liberated the pigeons
And the neighbours said ‘eeee
Tha can see it reyt, can’t tha?
Tha can just abart see it theer
In’t air, turning like a chucked cap
In’t air, voice like a wing flapping
In’t Northern air’
Am blutherin and blubberin
Me soul-case art.
As’ll nivver be a singer.
Ah’ll be silent as a stick in’t
Bucket in’t coil oil.
As’ll nivver catch fire.
That’s why ah’m roooarin.
Tears like a bust pipe.
Tears like a bust pipe.
It’s all reyt singin’ in’t lav
Or singin on’t bus on’t way to’t pit.
Lads expect it:
‘Come on George, giz a tune.
Come on Caruso, giz a song.
Come on lad, mek them nooats fly
Like homing pigeons flappin’ back to’t loft!’
Till’t bus stops.
And we climb in’t cage.
And drop darn to ‘ell.
Tears like a bust pipe
Tears like a bust pipe
As’ll nivver be a singer
And it breaks me chuffin ‘eart;
As’ll nivver be a singer.
As’ll nivver hold that nooat
Like a promise
Till’t clappin starts
And’t cheerin.
Tears like a bust pipe
Tears like a bust pipe
I should stay on’t bus
Gu back through Plevna
ride through Slosh,
Ovver’t Wesh
End up in Jump
Then when I get to Jump
Just Jump. Jump in’t air
And sing as ah’m Jumpin
Jump in’t air
And sing as ah’m jumpin
Jump in’t air
And sing as I’m jumpin…
3. Bow Tie
Tricky, those
Dicky bows
To tie
I would stand by the bedroom door and watch him
Round your throat
A bow-tie
The tight lie
I would stand by the bedroom door and watch him
I would stand at the door and see him struggling
Fussy, those
Bow ties
To fasten
I would stand at the bedroom door and imagine
Posh folk in suits and frocks talking too loud
Over and across
In a mirror
Wrong way round
I would stand at the bedroom door and imagine
Voices strangled in the clinking light of glasses
Face knitted
Concentrating
Veins like drainpipes
I would stand at the bedroom door and imagine
Arias of braying nobodies saying nothing loudly
Neck wrapped
In black
Punctuation
I would stand at the bedroom door and watch him
Neck wrapped in black punctuation
4. Smoke Drifts at Shift Change
Smoke drifts at shift change
No one can see it as they run for the bus
Or walk to their cars
Their old cars.
Flames lick the shit walls
That nobody built with love or skill
They just put them up
Chucked them up.
I like the spikes of yellow
Like arrows in the matt black sky
Or trees in the oven too long
Far too long.
I love that shuddering time
When the fire grips the room
And won’t let it go
Won’t let go.
Learn to burn you awful place
Nobody will help you when you’re crying
When the flames lick the shit walls
When the smoke drifts at shift change
When the fire lifts the heat high
When the striplights start dancing
When the whole place starts melting
And no one will see me
when I get on the bus
and sit behind the paper
sit behind the news
that will soon be me
when the whole world
starts melting…
The Northern Voices Project 
Reblogged this on Alan Edward Williams.
I have no problem with singing in a Northern accent as long as it isn’t patronising à la any Radio 4 drama which uses the North to represent gritty working class folk who poor but happy.
I’m Yorkshire born and bred, middle class and proud and woefully underrepresented in the media and arts.
If you can manage an opera free from stereotypes, flat caps, miners, whippets, overbearing women in pinnies, poverty and a pint o’ mild you have my blessing.
Thanks! But I may have contributed a few R4 miners myself when I did the music for The Queens of the Coal Age. But it had the blessing of Ann Scargill.