Back-Translated Music Meme

[major_clanger]

Well, it ain't really a meme yet as I've only just thought it up. Someone will have to propagate it first, and I'm not pinning my hopes on that! But, for the record (if you'll pardon the pun...)

1) Pick a song, well-known in English, for which there is a foreign-language version with lyrics available on the web. (Either a foreign cover, or the original if the English version is a translation.)

2) Run the foreign lyrics through an online translation service such as Google Translate.

3) Post an excerpt and see if anyone recognizes it. Full marks for identifying both versions by name and artist.

So, to kick off...

Humans, a goal, and an instruction,
A heart, a spirit, only one solution,
Burning the glow, a God, an example.

A meat, blood, a true faith,
A call, a dream, a strong will,
Gives me an example.

Not wrongly, not quite,
I say it to you: the black and white is no proof,
Not death, not emergency,
We need only an example for the world.

A meat, blood, a true faith,
A race and a dream, a strong will.

So quite me your hands,
And give me your hearts,
I wait,
There is only one direction,
An earth and a people.
An example.

MC

Comments

[bibliogirl.livejournal.com]

That looks an awful lot like Queen's One Vision. I have no idea who might have covered it, though.

[sbisson.livejournal.com]

One Vison, Queen?

[flick.livejournal.com]

Yup, got to agree with those two!

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

Both right as to the original :-)

The translation is from the lyrics to Laibach's gloriously demented German cover, Geburt Einer Nation. Evidently Laibach felt that in German translation the lyrics came across as sounding a bit fascistic, so did a deliberately ironic parody in appropriate style. If you haven't heard it, imaging One Vision sung in 2/3 time, in German, as industrial heavy metal, with vocals by a demented Nazi stormtrooper. With the volume turned up to 11.

MC

[bibliogirl.livejournal.com]

I need to find a copy of that. And play it to my mother (who's a big Queen fan) ;)

[vicarage.livejournal.com]

Well there's

Before the barracks
before the large gate
conditions a lantern
and stand themselves it still
before it so woll'n we there again
seh'n with the lantern want we steh'n
Like once *the giveaway*

[calatrice.livejournal.com]

"Lili Marlene"?

[vicarage.livejournal.com]

Yep, almost as easy as Silent Night.

[vicarage.livejournal.com]

Yep, almost as easy as Silent Night.