Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Bill 1:2 Throws Down A Challenge...


Hello there Blogsters...!
Here is a little useless information, which I'll follow up with a challenge.
Pre 1967 (circa) international copyright laws meant that anyone translating a song from one language to another would have to forfeit half of the writers royalties to the originators and quite right but (and this is the injustice) any future royalties in the original language meant that the translator was entitled to a percentage too.

If you're still with me I'll give you an example; Lennon/McCartney wrote 'She Loves You' which was translated into German by some geezer, whom I'll call Wolfgang into 'Sie Liebt Dich' (Ja Ja Ja) John and Paul received half the writers royalties from these recordings but all future royalties from the sales of the song in English, Wolfgang got half. Thankfully it was changed, not, I might point out that it made any difference to me but a strong principal was at stake.

So, here is the challenge. Below are the german lyrics to Hey Jude and if anyone can sing them I'll buy them a pint (or equivalent) To make it easier on both performer and listener, I've only included verses 1 & 2 + the chorus.

1. Hey Junge, mach doch keinen Mist
Hor ein trauriges Lied, und dann mach's besser
Denk daran, ihr die Tur zu deinem Herzen zu offnen
Dann kannst du's probieren, es besser zu machen

2. Hey Junge, hab keine Angst
Du bist losgezogen, um sie zu kriegen
Und in dem, Augenblick, wo du ihr dein Herz offnest
fangst du an, es besser zu machen

Chorus:
Und wenn's dich doch mal kalt erwischt, hey Junge
lass dich nicht gleich niederschmettern
Du weiss ja, nur Dummkopfe machen einen auf cool
indem sie die Welt noch etwas kalter machen
Da da da da da da, da da da ...

So there you go, I find I can make the first two lines but then it all seems to go to pot.

See you Friday ... Bill 1.2

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You've made it more difficult by leaving out the umlaut accents!

I will attempt this, although the tune might suffer.