Jamie McCarthy
My Real Fake Voice.
18th April 2020.
It changes depending on who I’m talking to
I change it
Even when I try not to
There’s my London voice
My a-bit-scouse’ish voice
My posh middle-class-culture voice
My imitating my Irish parents voice ...
When I make a conscious effort not to change it
In different situations
With different people
It feels fake
I use my London voice in the posh middle class arts place
And it feels like I’m playing a character
Or making a point
The voice I have with my neighbours seems like it’s in quotes in that environment
Because I can speak 'like I belong' if I choose to
If I used my posh voice with my neighbours
I would feel like a dick
(They probably think I sound posh anyway)
My Irish Mum
Was very picky about how we spoke
‘It’s not ‘ouse and ‘air and ‘at
It’s house and hair and hat’
Us kids heard that a lot from her
(The rest of the family called her 'the Lady Mary’)
I went to Grammar School
Heard the ways in which where I came from were laughed at as thick and common
Without realising it my accent changed when I was there
And then again, when I went to college
People would say things like:
‘Oh, I thought you were the eccentric son of a rich businessman’
Intelligent
Speaks posh
Can’t be the son of a nursing assistant and a labourer
There’s a split
My ‘eccentric son of ...’ voice
And my ‘grew up on a council estate, still lives on a council estate voice’
I grew up singing Irish songs in an Irish accent
Or as close as I could get
Until I realised that wasn’t my voice
I was borrowing it
Had no right to it
But I can't sing those songs in an English accent
At weddings and funerals
The Irish son-of on-loan voice rises from my throat
It slips out easy
It’s my fake voice
It feels like it belongs to me
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