Dec 152014
What if a song you love in a foreign language you don’t understand at all has terrible lyrics? The other day I was listening to “Kungo Sogoni,” by a woman named Nâ Hawa Doumbia. I forget what country she’s from, but I’m pretty sure it’s a country where I wouldn’t be able to make out a word anyone’s saying. I occurred to me: I hope the song doesn’t contain a deal-breaking couplet, like “My love don’t give me presents/I know that she’s no peasant.”
I’ve been getting into 60s French pop/ye ye the past few years, starting w/Francoise Hardy, and I’m usually OK w/the lyrics, although there’s one Francoise Hardy song called “Mon Ami Rose (My Friend the Rose)”, which apparently has her in conversation w/a rose, I think. There’s also a France Gall song that Serge Gainsborg wrote for her that may or may not be about lollipops.
Feliz Navidad amigos!
Maybe you should look at this from another angle: I’m so happy that I can enjoy this music and the emotion in the singer’s voice without the possibility of a lyrical misstep spoiling my whole groove!
Besides, if you give a really objective listen to “She’s a Woman”, you might actually think that the slightly desperate to “rock out” might just include horrible couplets like that.
I don’t listen to music with lyrics in languages I can’t understand very often. I figure if I don’t understand it at all, then I’m not getting it anyways. Either that, or it may as well just all be Hocus Pocus by Focus.
I tend to agree. You are so right, too, that Focus had it figured out: yodeling, be it in Dutch or in English, is truly the universal language.
I think a lot sensitive type english speaking Gainsbourg fans would be shocked how sexist were his lyrics.
Once I started listening to a lot of African and South American music, and I listen to a LOT of that kind of music, I quickly got over caring about not understanding the words. People all over the world listen to English and American music without understanding the words, so I don’t see why it should bother me. I don’t always pay attention to song lyrics even if they’re in English.