Flap Songs

I never realized how interested in flaps and flapping I am. I've been collecting things like this for a while, it turns out. Everyone needs a hobby, I guess. There's just something about this one little speech sound that seems to open a window into what we're doing when we talk. Or in this case, when we sing. Right now I want to talk about songs with inconsistent flapping. (You all know what I'm talking about by now, don't you? See this post about Flaps and NPR for some background.)

On the Rolling Stones 1978 single "Shattered" we get a whole lecture on the sociological essence of flapping. Or... something. Throughout the song, Mick flaps his t's. Shattered, tattered, battered, chitter chatter, party, dirty, I can't give it away, what a mess, does it matter?: he flaps in all of these, like the New Yorker he's personifying. (In the whole piece, I counted one place where Mick doesn't flap: listen at :58 and you'll hear the repeated Yiddish shmatte shmatte shmatte! with aspirated t's.) But the backing vocals (by Ronnie Wood and... whoever?) are a different story. These guys stubbornly refuse to flap. It can first be heard clearly around :22 and really stands out around 2:40. It's as though they're holding on to their Englishness, aspirating t's all over the place, while Mick goes native, belting out his ambivalent ode to the Big Apple right over them. The result is so discordant, almost like they're singing two different songs at once.

Everything is ordinary, flap-wise, in Heart's blistering 1977 classic rock standard, "Barracuda." Until the 1:30 mark, that is, when Ann Wilson doesn't flap the d in barracuda! That is a full-on d! (Compare this with the flapped barracudas at :40 and 2:48.) I know! That d always strikes me as a jolt of childlike innocence in the center of a scathing takedown. It's... Well, it's pretty remarkable.

















Now, I don't know what to say about "The Authority Song," John C. Mellencamp's 1983 anthem to underdogism. In the chorus Mellencamp tells us, "I fight authority; authority always wins" 13 times. And, strangely, in seven of those instances, he aspirates the t in the first authority, but flaps the t as expected in the second. (In other words, using the same simplified transcription I used in the NPR post linked to above, a little more than half the time, he says, "I fight authoriTy; authoriDy always wins.") It's like he's fighting himself. Fascinating. Listen to all the pairs and see for yourself. :42 (one aspirated t, one flap), :48 (again, one of each), 1:00 (both authorities are flapped), 1:37 (one of each), 1:43 (one of each), 1:56 (both flapped), 2:35 (one of each), 2:42 (both flapped), 2:54 (both flapped), 3:00 (one of each), 3:06 (both flapped), 3:18 (both flapped), and 3:25 (one of each).

I don't know how everyone doesn't hear this stuff. I can't not hear it. It jumps out at me and says, "Listen up!"

Addendum: Here's a fun article about analyzing the Southern Californian "punk rock" accent. Tip of the tongue to Torque for the link.