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Survey: English lyrics meanings for Spanish speakers

Would you agree?

We should start by saying that when it comes to interpretations everything is valid, there is not right or wrong interpretations. Maybe one is more appropriate than the others. Having it in mind we invite you to listen to the song below and then read and comment on our interpretation.

From music to lyrics the song is strong. It generates sensations of denunciation and hopelessness, the one who is talking has given up only because he has fought for all that he could fight.

The song tells the story of a young man who has lost all his hope, a man who is experimenting homesickness, a man who, probably, is a murder. From the first stanza we can say that the man feels there is nothing else to do in that place, the place where he grew up, it offers nothing new, “There was no one in the town and no one in the field... This dusty barren land had given all it could yield”.   He has left his land at an early age, he has wandered and he has not found calm and rest. Then, he starts talking to someone, he is warning that person to be prepared for leaving too; the young man sarcastically hopes the person does not feel the same he does: “So collect your courage and collect your horse And pray you never feel this same kind of remorse”.

He acknowledges he has done something wrong, he knows he has no hope, but he seems not to care, he is resigned to his fate, the jail: “Seal my heart and break my pride I've nowhere to stand and now nowhere to hide Align my heart, my body, my mind To face what I've done and do my time.”

But, who is the person he is talking to? “Well you are my accuser, now look in my face Your oppression reeks of your greed and disgrace”. Apparently, he is talking to an unfair, dishonest but powerful person, someone like a ruler, in that person’s hand it is to provide or not the people with what they need to live. That dishonest person is the one pointing out the young man’s crime. However, he does not have the authority to judge the young man, according to what is stated above.

What is the young man’s crime? he warns his accuser he  will kill him because of all the unfairness he committed: “Well, there will come a time I will look in your eye You will pray to the God that you've always denied Then I'll go out back and I'll get my gun I'll say, "You haven't met me, I am the only son"”. And that is what actually happens, “I went out back and got my gun, said, "you haven't met me I am the only son"”. Why is the young man not disturbed? Because he quite knows what he is doing, killing an unfair greedy ruler who oppressed to the end his people and his family, he knows what he has lived and what he saw the ruler do. “ Well, yes sir yes sir yes it was me I know what I've done 'cause I know what I've seen I went out back and got my gun, said, "you haven't met me I am the only son".

Now we want to pose a questions for you, dear readers: What do you think the singer mean when he says or sings: "you haven't met me I am the only son"?

Some other tools

In a previous post we suggested some dictionaries that could be useful when trying to interpret and translate English lyrics. However, we know that for achieving our aims we will need tools not only for word to word meaning correspondence but also for getting the sense of many English expressions (phrasal verbs and idiomatic expressions). Following two suggestions.

Idiom explanatory picture 

• The free dictionary/ Idioms

  
  
  
  
  Presenting current American, British and Australian English idioms, we have:
  
  
  http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com
  
  
  
  
  
  

  English Phrasal verbs

Providing a brief explanation of phrasal verbs and  a long list of them we have:

http://www.learn-english-today.com/phrasal-verbs/phrasal-verb-list.htm

LET’S GET THIS GOING!!!

Hi guys!!! It is a good time to begin with a new post.

This time we want you to give us your own concept about the next songs.

What we want you to do is to try to write your Spanish interpretation (not translation) of the lyrics of the songs. You can do this either by taking part by part (verse by verse) of the song, or by just giving the general “plot” or version of the story.

We have chosen these specific songs lyrics because we consider them to be interesting and beautiful, but at the same time not completely clear when trying to understand part by part the whole song. That’s to say that some parts of the song are not totally clear even after having found the original reliable English lyrics. We have been able to understand the story as a whole, yes, but we want to catch every single part of this works of art and enjoy them as it is meant to be. Isn’t it beautiful when you can sing along something you fully get?

As  we are just giving you the video and not the lyrics, you should look for them the best place you can get. After you have seen at least 4 or 5 different sites, you will see there are several lyrics version of every song. You will choose the one you trust the most and will compare the sound to the lyrics and see if you can really trust. That way you will see the need of this blog. Then try to explain what the lyrics are about. If you like, you could also answer the question we came up with.

The songs are:

The Killers - Runaways

Question: Did he stay with his wife? or did he leave her and everything?

Simon & Garfunkel - The Sound of Silence

Question: What is the meaning of “I turned my collar to the cold and damp”?

Some tools

In our endeavour for having fair and reliable English lyrics interpretations and translations, we should have the necessary tools to work. Although we are not expert translators, we work well in both English and Spanish. We do not know all of the existent words, that is why, here we recommend some dictionaries to use as tools.

English dictionaries

• The American Heritage Dictionary

Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, this dictionary presents not only English word definitions but also pronunciation and etymology. It is available online and for smart phones.

Here is the link:

http://www.ahdictionary.com/

• Cambridge Dictionaries                                            

A set of dictionaries designed for all levels. It offers American and British English dictionaries, bilingual dictionaries and specialized dictionaries. It is  available online and for smart phones.  

Here is the link:

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/

• Collins Dictionaries

Sharing most of the characteristics mentioned above (monolingual dictionary, bilingual dictionary and both pronunciation and etymological issues), this dictionary also offers a  complete english thesaurus. It is available online and its mobile version is being  trialed.

Here is the link:

http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english

But in order to do it easier for you, in our blog you will find a widget that allows you to look for any english word definition or synonym right here right now.

Spanish dictionary

• Diccionario de la real academia de la lengua Española

Spanish dictionary created by the Real Academy of the Spanish Language. Currently making constant adaptations from the new Spanish Grammar and new Spanish spelling rules. If you do not find something here, it is because either you mis-spelled the word or it does not exist, plain like that.

Here is the link :

http://lema.rae.es/drae/

Why do we want you to help us improving this blog?

 We do not really know if you (Spanish speaker or English-Spanish translation interpretation enthusiast) have wondered some time about the best way to understand the real meaning of some English or even Spanish songs lyrics. 

In our case, it's been so and, we want to create this blog to set a community of people willing to look for a natural real life translation and better interpretation of a song lyrics.

The idea comes from the multiple times we have seen awfully translated lyrics from English to Spanish, making us (people who know how to speak both languages) angry and wanting to do something to change this path.

Now, let's begin showing you (our beloved viewers) and example on how this nightmare can be seen everywhere!!!

It's important to point out that this phenomenon concerns not only the translation itself but also the transcription of English-English lyrics. Haven't you gone YouTube to look for the lyrics of a song just to realize that it was badly transcribed by an 8 year-old boy?

In this post we would like to give you just a hint of how bad this situation is. Please watch (listen) this video and read this lyrics (transcription and translation) carefully:

HERE you will find the link for the badly transcribed-translated lyrics. 

And here you will see the video with the original audio of an awesome performance of Mumford and Sons: