I hear the word "again" spoken in songs, and I hear them say the other word, and when the words are pronounced, you can clearly hear that they don't rhyme. I have ears.
The simple explanation is that they do not rhyme as pronounced in the US, but they do rhyme as pronounced in other parts of the world, including Canada. It's one of the more noticeable differences in how a word is spoken between the US and Canada.
Whether you should change the pronunciation in a song to make it rhyme, is another question. I tend to agree that, if it's not the singer/songwriter's normal pronunciation, they shouldn't say it that way, as it seems inauthentic.
I was assuming, |paulthemapguy|, that the singer was actually singing
again as
a-gain. You're saying, rather, that the singer was actually singing
a-genn and then pretending it rhymes with
rain. Yes, that grates on me as well. It's one thing if the song is old enough that the words used to rhyme but no longer do (such as in some church hymns), but that can't be the excuse for a modern pop song.
In my opinion, |webny99|, it's more complicated than that. For example, the Beatles, who rarely tried to hide their Liverpool accent, did occasionally strive for an American accent: I don't think
Rocky Raccoon would be the same without their effort to sound American. Then, too, Paul McCartney and John Lennon were greatly influenced by American music, so their 'authentic' singing voice is actually slightly American, and trying to rid themselves of it could be considered inauthentic.
Okay, so it seems your entire purpose is to be contrarian to everything I post. ... This is the fourth example in recent memory of you replying to my post just to pedantically correct me and undermine what I say (unsuccessfully, I might add).
What is your problem?
I assure you, I have nothing personal against you at all. I'm often pedantic, and language is one of my biggest interests. It doesn't matter who had typed what you typed: I'd have posted the same reply. You seem to imagine that I'm sitting here thinking,
Oh, there's that guy I hate, so what can I do to tear him down? The truth is that, just today, I thought to myself,
Oh, cool, I haven't seen him posting very much on the forum lately, I wonder if he's been busy or if we've just been hanging out in different threads. Here, I thought I was just engaging in friendly conversation, but you interpreted it as an attempt at undermining you. Believe me, I had no such intention.
