@Divizna I would disagree with that. In reality we can set the stressed syllable anywhere we want. We can set it to be on a downbeat, on an upbeat, add more stresses, remove stresses - literally any way we want to sing it to realise our own vision for the song.

@Lecifer Listen to Pearl Jam for examples of very unorthodox stressing of syllables

@RoryAlsop We can... but generally we really shouldn't. I'm afraid I've heard a lot of variations on popular songs (you know the kind - partially changed lyrics to fit a theme) where the lyricist wasn't good with the prosody of the language and the result was bad, hard to sing, unpleasant to hear.

You can work with it deliberately if you have a good feel for what you're doing and the style of the music is friendly to it (jazz comes to mind), sure. But that's under "in art, if you know what you're doing, you can break any rules". An advanced technique. Not something to say to someone who still needs to ask.

There's a reason why it's "What shall we Do with a Drunken Sailor" and "my Bonnie lies Over the Ocean" and "the Answer my Friend is Blowing in the Wind" and "she Came to me one Morning one Lonely sunday Morning" and "close your Eyes and i'll Kiss you, toMorrow i'll Miss you, reMember i'll Always be True" - and not at all random.

@Divizna I definitely don't think it's an advanced technique - I'm not suggesting this is something you should do randomly, but there are so many good examples, I would try to encourage people to think about how they want their music to come across, be happy breaking out of standard patterns, and enjoy making something personalised

So I'd say We can, and if we want to we should, but think about what the end result will be

Perhaps, yeah, but first of all notice that such a consideration exists at all - so many people miss it completely.

@Divizna true

It's not for the first iteration, that's what I meant. This isn't a huge field with a lot of things to learn, so it doesn't take all that long to get to "advanced".