Apr 102012
 

Please identify the song that contains the following lyrics:

Nobody does not feel this evening
it imports which pain
since me m’ nell’ within of the Ev’ rain;
to find;
everybody it knows this baby
to obtained the new dresses
but to see its tapes
and its arches of its circuits
have fallen recently

The tricky part is that I “translated” the lyrics from English to Dutch, then Dutch to French, then French to Italian, then Italian back to English, using the online translation site Bablefish.

Let me know if you want any hints.

Feel free to stump us with re-translated lyrics of your own choosing.

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  83 Responses to “Name That Tune: The ESL Edition”

  1. misterioso

    Uh, “Just Like a Woman”? As performed by Focus?

  2. Damnit! I suspected that was too easy.

    Okay, here’s another:

    The child, when on on being believed them task on
    Darlin’ love couldn’t it lives without you and your love
    if me these in gold dreams of mine yesterday
    I would pack to you in the sky and he dyin’ ; to feel;
    already the way

  3. misterioso

    Not sure but it kind of sounds like Stevie Nicks lyrics. I mean, as it is now.

  4. That’s what I was thinking, like Babefish boiled down all her songs from that classic era into this one translation.

  5. Now that you’ve pointed it out, I agree, it does sound like an amalgam of Stevie Nicks lyrics. But it’s not. The category is classic rock, by the way.

  6. misterioso

    Well, I can tell you this: the process is not reversible: this is what you get if you do the process in reverse:

    L’ child, when on on l’ raw is incaricare on ’ t of couldn of amore of ’ van Darlin lives he without you and it your amore as me that in the dreams dell’ ; however of miens yesterday rempaquerais I in the sky and him ’ of dyin; for to stop; already the direction

  7. You nailed it again! Just kidding, now stop trying to cheat and focus. You can do this.

  8. I’m gonna say “Feel Like Makin’ Love” by Bad Co.

  9. Yes! Nicely done.

  10. Try this one on for size, taken from English to Spanish to Danish to Japanese to French and back to English, if memory serves:

    Best man MIDI / keep its head Don ‘ said South t finally change the good book, aujourd’ now forgotten, immediately after the people who write South

  11. cherguevara

    you are some scary people!

  12. I need a hint. Which genre?

  13. Early-’70s Classic Rock.

  14. Southern Man by Neil Young?

  15. misterioso

    Funny: I got to that line about “those golden dreams of my yesterdays” (or whatever it is) but was blanking on where it comes from.

  16. misterioso

    Gotta be.

  17. That was the give away.

  18. Happiness Stan

    Popular English band of the 1960s, English to Dutch to French to Portuguese to English

    E finally, l’ love is to far them, the reason to l’ love demands them

  19. All You Need is Love?

  20. Oops! I meant to reply to HS above.

  21. I’m thinking it’s the ending couplet from The Beatles’ “The End.”

  22. good call. That got to be it.

  23. Happiness Stan

    spot on!

  24. Happiness Stan

    Mr Mod got that one, very cool game CDM!

  25. These are fun.

  26. Glad you like them. Here’s a ball buster:

    “Speeches that things person who not door no
    You’ it does not give d’ other portarici things;
    the king callin’ ;
    but they have obtained my name in order clearly the can’ ; to make;
    the child says where l they are between a year”

    Mid 70’s hard rock. feel free to ask for clues on this one.

  27. Maybe warm up with this one first:

    “There’S.The mrs. who’ ; s all this shines sure is in gold and she’ ; s that purchase l’ scale to the sky. When they here become weet he, if l’ warehouse it is sluices with a word can obtain this that it has come for Ooh, ooh, ET she’ ; s that purchase l’ scale to the sky.”

  28. Did the singer of this song have a long, curly, blond mane of hair?

  29. Yes! Ja! Oui! Si! Yes!

  30. This one’s not too difficult, but I like the way it reads:

    “If it are like you easily a musician, if you that or ripe sound make to get one that of the needed guitar, will go you removed if you go in with the package of the comrades”

    ’70s Rock

  31. That’s great – another 11 translated of that poetic quality and I smell a special translated cover band night in our future.

  32. Nope. But he and the band have enjoyed a huge career revitalization.

  33. Ja!

    Here’s another easy one that reads funny:

    “If successful, young, and are open book, You say: “Life and Living” will be used (You know you have, you know that you know you have one)
    But the changing world to live
    It makes the law and
    He said: “Live and Monday””

  34. “Live and Let Die”! I actually ran that verse through a few translations yesterday to see how it would read, but your version is better than what I got.

  35. This one’s easy to guess despite running through a good half dozen translations, but I think you’ll agree it’s less filling as a result:

    30-5 $ And the six pack is my name! So is the rest of the beer spent s error! I always rather six pack for fucking! What time is wasted six pack!

  36. Oui!

    Yeah, I had to put that through about 9 translations to even scramble it that much. That Macca, he truly speaks to the world.

  37. Could it be “Six Pack” by Black Flag?

    Here’s one that may or may not be easy. I’d best describe the original song genre as being “Adult Oriented Pablum”:

    “I, summary of all was ill for my daughter.
    Track record of your favorite songs.
    I read the newspaper, it was lying in bed, he sleeps.
    Years, I was reading this letter considerably:

    “Cool cocktails, we are used to bireuleul (sic) If you catch them.
    Half of the brain in yoga.
    If you are in the middle of the night at the top of the hill like the one you love is, instead of green.
    Andre is held to pray for you to write the word””

  38. You’ve got it, Bobby!

    I’ll need to ponder that new one you’ve launched. I’m sensing some Psychic Oblivion in this song.

  39. I suspect the translation is better than the original lyrics.

  40. Yes, but the original IS one of my “favorites” in terms of “irritainment” value. It’s also from the ’70s…(think “leisure suits”).

    Here are the opening lines from a big hit anthem of the mid ’80s (roughly), probably this act’s first big hit:

    “Getting started!

    You wake up late, did not go to school.
    Ask your mother, “I asked,” but said, “No”
    We have two classes instead of garbage work.
    Teachers called illegal.”

  41. Fight for your right to par….tey!!!

  42. Yep…or, as it came out in translation:

    “We have to fight for the rights of individuals!”

    A little more high-minded than the Beastie Boys’ original lyric.

  43. I love that “Kick it!” translated as, “Getting started!”.

  44. Happiness Stan

    The outstanding ones are driving me mad, off to bed now, but here’s another one – England, early to mid-60s – and I doubt that anyone in the Hall would be unable to recognise this instantly from the first chord of its introduction. It’s two versions of the first verse, the second version is particularly poetic, I think, and I thought it was interesting that after being run through all of the languages spoken by Mrs H actually appears to be moving very slightly back towards the original sense of the lyric.

    The people me me are old, before obtaining,
    I that tries the fact that we, exactly,
    are put on the lower part in making the cold where we who the thing which dies because we obtain everything,
    me desire are terrible

    The human I am I in l’ Before; Old; Acts as a purchasing agent,
    I, the fact attempts us to place the niedrigereren part correctly,
    does by a cold climate,
    we, the matter, is meurt, because we accept all, I request fearfully

  45. Happiness Stan

    Is this something a Brit is likely to be familiar with?

  46. ‘Plenty Of Jam Jars’ by the Ravellers?

  47. Here’s a hint regarding my ’70s leisure suit song: It was mentioned in last week’s Dr. Hook thread.

  48. I would think that everyone knows this song. The album came out in about 77 or 78, the artist(s) fell apart a few years later but has/have clawed their way to the top again and have remained there for quite some time. This is the first verse.

  49. Ha! The Pina Colada Song by Rupert Holmes(?)

  50. Happiness Stan

    Not quite…

    The first version contains three key words from the original which might give it away, the second two, although in neither version are they quite in the context of the original lyric, nor necessarily feature in the corresponding original lines.

  51. You are correct, sir! Technically, the title is “Escape (The Pina Colada Song)”, but I’m not gonna nitpick. What was the giveaway for you, cdm?

  52. “cool cocktails” and “half of the brain”

  53. “My Generation”?

  54. HS, this one is driving me nuts.

  55. The “half of the brain” line was the part I’d hoped would be a clue. It took about 13 translations to morph “Pina Coladas” into “Cool cocktails”.

  56. It’s gotta be “My Generation” with “people”, “before”, “die”, “old” & “cold” in there…

  57. This one doesn’t really count, but I think it’s pretty funny:

    Well, I saw the look and feel attractive.
    I have a temperature of 103
    I would like to do more that dance?
    I courage warm, yes.

  58. Happiness Stan

    Yep, well done! My Generation it is.

  59. You once have supplied thus fine you have thrown quémandeurs a part of ten hundreds in your first one, didn’t you?
    People’d issue, that is, “The head engine of Beware, you’ ; the obligatory king to fall”;
    You have thought they to them it what d’ child
    You used to laugh approximately all to he hung that you of don’t now; conference thus hard now you don’t
    it thus seems to trust itself approximately dinanzi for your following meal macerating.

  60. “Like a Rolling Stone”!

  61. Happiness Stan

    Since the last one proved so easy, here is another, a popular American tune from the mid 1960s.

    Since if I headstock has the little girl that him them include also is in me sews,
    the only headstock I has that is had;
    M’ love, particularly methodological I qu’ to go, in top which maintains correctly my loves, has been taken that,
    the headstock sews that, loved includes

  62. Another clue: This song contains a vibra slap and the most rocking use of the triangle ever recorded.

  63. Happiness Stan

    Aerosmith – Sweet Emotion?

  64. misterioso

    Oh, absolutely! Must be. And despite the fact that it actually came out in ’75. By ’77-’78 Aerosmith was already toast.

  65. Yep.

  66. For some reason, all the “my loves” are making me think, “Love Minus Zero, No Limit”. The “headstock” is baffling me, though.

  67. Yes! My apologies for not getting the year right. What finally gave it away? The rocking triangle clue?

  68. misterioso

    No, I might not have got it on my own but as soon as HS offered the answer it was clear he was correct.

  69. Yeah the “headstocks” and the “sews” are throwing me but I’m still working on it.

  70. Happiness Stan

    It was indeed the triangle – I think that it’s the only Aerosmith song that I’ve ever heard, and even then I had to think very long and hard about it.

  71. Happiness Stan

    It’s not Dylan. This lot started in the early 60s, the singer had a huge resurgence in the 80s.

  72. HS, surely you’re heard Walk This Way and Dream On, no?

  73. Okay, I’m focusing on Simon and Garfunkel…

  74. Happiness Stan

    Walk This Way, yes, Dream On no, don’t think so. Big hair rock never really did much over here at that time, more a diet of wall-to-wall KC and the Sunshine Band and Olivia Newton John, which is why a substantial proportion of fourteen-year-old boys were very relieved when punk broke.

  75. Happiness Stan

    I wouldn’t focus too hard in that direction, nor on confessional/ singer-songwriter-types. The right period, though.

  76. Happiness Stan

    Okay, here’s another bit

    And I is I which loses it while crying,
    form highest oh like the mountain of the river,
    in which my deep me the baby of the baby of me
    I baby I loves baby is oh and the baby, I love

  77. River Deep Mountain High!!!

  78. Happiness Stan

    got it! Great game CDM, hope to play again soon

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