"Ain't Gonna Rain No More" & R-Dropping Accents

We are once again looking at the most popular song from 100 years ago! It's 1924's "Ain't Gonna Rain No More", an old folk song performed by a variety of artists, but most famously by Wendell Woods Hall, considered by some to be the first modern pop star. We'll explore some of the popular lyrics of the song, a song which has countless verses since lots of singers like to add new ones. And we'll explore the dialectical variation of losing the "R" sounds, particularly after vowels, like how in the song of the episode, "more" becomes "mo". This is a phenomenon known as derhoticization, R-dropping, R-less, and various other things. Where did this pronunciation quirk originate, and where did it spread to? We'll also talk about the concept of R-like sounds in general, and how they're different in different languages. What makes a sound R-like, even in a language that doesn't have the letter R? For Eurovision, we're talking about Cyprus's 2024 song "Liar" by Silia Kapsis. Find us on instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/gettingdownandwordy/ And email us at [email protected] Huge thanks to Patsy Walker for the use of our theme song “Who’s Wordy Now”! This week’s promoted podcast is The Lost Signal Podcast. Find them anywhere you get podcasts or at this link: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-lost-signal-podcast/id1465964518 Find them, us, and lots of other great podcasts on our podcast network podmoth.network