Fee-Mells? E-mells?

Hey, I noticed in the Robot Girlfriend song that Rhett pronounces "females" as "fee mells" like, the A sounds like an E. And he does it again with the word "Emails" like "E-Mells". Is that a kind of technique or just a North Carolinian accent type thing? Does link do it too?

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Permalink Reply by Shaina (Simurgh) on July 26, 2009 at 4:13pm

I never paid any attention to his pronunciation of email and female...probably because I'm from Georgia and pronounce those words the same way.
I'm pretty sure it's a Southern thing-we have our own vowel sound rules down here. (For example, I pronounce "than" the same as "then". Also,"pen" and "pin" both rhyme with then).

Although the guys can definitely turn up the southern accent dial (like in the Rusty and Larnold videos or during Craig's List prank calls) their accents seem pretty mild to me most of the time

Permalink Reply by Rhett (Shahbaz) on July 30, 2009 at 12:35pm

This question goes a lot deeper than the simple pronunciation of emails and females. Let me explain:

Because we sing "comedy songs" (or whatever you want to call them), we almost always enter into a particular "character voice" when singing a song. Virtually every song is different...sometimes we try to sound like rednecks, sometimes rappers, sometimes nerds, sometimes "normal". In the Robot Girlfriend song, I kind of just assumed a voice that I thought the character would have...it's kind of subtle and not really anything obviously altered.

But, for some reason, I said "femells" and "emells". I promise you that it wasn't too planned out, and that I do not say this in normal life, and it is not a Southern thing. I specifically remember hearing myself when I was recording those lyrics, and I thought, "hmmm...that sounds a little different...I guess I'll do that." Little did I know that I would have a bunch of people conjecturing about the finer points of regional pronunciation.

But, this all leads to another question...is there a real "Rhett&Link" sound? I'm not sure.

Permalink Reply by Emily Collins (The Dark Horse) on July 30, 2009 at 2:46pm

Rhett, take the overreaction as a compliment. Hahaha. If you remember, people thought that the Beatles were hiding hidden messages in their songs when you reversed them, this is the same thing, Rhett&Linkified!

:P

Permalink Reply by JoJo Dodd (Capricious Penguin) on July 31, 2009 at 11:21pm

But see emily, if you have the last of the secret songs, (The one you got from Supernote) rhett and link ARE hiding messages in their music when you play them backwards! haha

Permalink Reply by Emily Collins (The Dark Horse) on August 1, 2009 at 6:08pm

Wasn't a fan in time for supernote, but I do get what you're saying, They did the same thing in the Crayon Colors Song. ;)

JoJo Dodd said:

But see emily, if you have the last of the secret songs, (The one you got from Supernote) rhett and link ARE hiding messages in their music when you play them backwards! haha