Interpreting songs

[Daft]

I have to say, hats off to all you terps who can interpret songs

I asked a friend of mine CODA/interpreter how she interprets songs. She said she has to read the lyrics several times and try to get the sense of the song.

I grew up hearing and have been losing my years for the past several years. Sometimes someone will hand me some song lyrics and ask me how to sign them. I have to tell them - you got me!

 

[jejones3141]

What's weird is that often when songs go from one spoken language to another, the lyrics in one language typically don't have a thing to do with those in the other. The tunes get reused, but the lyrics don't, and the new lyrics are totally unrelated to the originals.

Some examples: "My Way" as sung by Frank Sinatra and others (OK, maybe not the Sex Pistols) has lyrics celebrating some guy who's spent his whole life defiantly doing things his way. The original French title is "Comme d'Habitude" ("As Usual"), and from the very little French I know, seems to be about a guy whose relationship with his wife, and his whole life, has become boring and repetitive--it lists all the things he does and that happen as usual. Ho-hum.

What usually gets blamed are differences in rhythm and sound between the spoken languages involved that make a literal translation clumsy--might as well just start over, I guess people decide. (Though when there are decent translations that preserve the meaning and such, they're a delight as well as a tour de force.)

The difference surprises me.