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It's Gibberish, But Italian Pop Song Still Means Something

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Re: It's Gibberish, But Italian Pop Song Still Means Something

#41

Post by zipop »

rednukleus wrote: post #19
stcredzero wrote: post #13

Pretty much the entirety of the Cocteau Twins discography is this. A few Enya songs as well. Also: "Bork, bork, bork!" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sY_Yf4zz-yo EDIT: Let's be honest here, quite a few ordinary pop songs are also gibberish masquerading as coherent language. EDIT: Richard Feynman even got into the act once as a young man. Ironically, he was an English speaker doing gibberish Italian: http://www.bookra…

It's hard to bargle nawdle zouss; With all these marbles in my mouth

Smells like Nirvana!

Re: It's Gibberish, But Italian Pop Song Still Means Something

#42

Post by opminion »

Aardwolf wrote: post #6

Reminds me of when I was a child, didn't understand English (not my native language) yet, and heard American songs on the radio!

Perhaps Gangnam Style is more of a novelty in the English-speaking countries, where foreign pop music is uncommon, than in those countries where it is common: Italian teenagers might not care that much whether it is in Korean or English, whereas English teenagers will notice that they are dancing to a song whose lyrics they cannot possibly understand.

Re: It's Gibberish, But Italian Pop Song Still Means Something

#43

Post by mahmud »

Aardwolf wrote: post #6

Reminds me of when I was a child, didn't understand English (not my native language) yet, and heard American songs on the radio!

I know to parallel sets of lyrics for almost all top 80s disco and soul songs: one actual, and one misheard, from when I was a child and didn't speak English.

Only a few years ago I heard my all time favorite song growing up, except I now realize it's a female singer! Tracy Chapman tapes were very popular in Somalia, and I don't think any of us realized Mr Chapman was, in fact, a woman.

Even when we have seen her pictures! She might have even looked "manlier" than most androgynous stars of that time.

Re: It's Gibberish, But Italian Pop Song Still Means Something

#44

Post by sdfjkl »

Mz wrote: post #22
sdfjkl wrote: post #21

Thanks to APD ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auditory_processing_disorder ), most songs sound like that to me (I can only understand fragments of most lyrics unless I google them). I love music and listen to a lot of it, but most of the time I like the sound and not the words.

I suspect that when I was younger, I had a similar issue without realizing it. I used to think all lyricists were higher than a kite any time they wrote anything. After getting a diagnosis late in life for a condition I was born with and getting healthier, as I got healthier, songs began sounding a lot more prosaic to me. Some guy that I thought was trying to catch "a moon train" was really catching the Noon train to…

Interesting, what condition was this and how did you recover from it?

P.S.: If you miss those whimsical-sounding lyrics, there's always Purity Ring (band).

Re: It's Gibberish, But Italian Pop Song Still Means Something

#45

Post by pyre »

loupeabody wrote: post #39

That last quote about American English sounding like "anger born out of resignation" is a bit ominous. I'm fairly sure this Japanese band, White Ash, has nothing but pure gibberish as lyrics. I'm aware that some Japanese musicians, despite not really being able to effectively pronounce English words, will sing in English. Here though, I cannot pick out any English: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5RmmIS1AIQ If I'd on…

  "I sang it with an angry tone because the theme was
   important. It was an anger born out of resignation.
   I brought to light the fact that people don't
   communicate."
He sang it with an angry tone because he was angry. Nothing there says that "American English sounds like anger born out of resignation to non-English speakers."

Re: It's Gibberish, But Italian Pop Song Still Means Something

#46

Post by Mz »

sdfjkl wrote: post #44
Mz wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect that when I was younger, I had a similar issue without realizing it. I used to think all lyricists were higher than a kite any time they wrote anything. After getting a diagnosis late in life for a condition I was born with and getting healthier, as I got healthier, songs began sounding a lot more prosaic to me. Some guy that I thought was trying to catch "a moon train" was really catching the Noon train to…

Interesting, what condition was this and how did you recover from it? P.S.: If you miss those whimsical-sounding lyrics, there's always Purity Ring (band).

Oh, I have atypical cystic fibrosis -- in short, I have a long, long history of ear infections (and I am still wrestling with how to explain how I recovered, which I am trying to document at healthgazelle.com). Probably not directly relevant to your situation. Though I spent a lot of time on alternative med sites. Off the top of my head, my recollection is that some people with capd benefit from magnesium. My son, who suffers less from capd than he used to, says chocolate helped him.

Edit: iirc, chocolate is high in magnesium, so that might be why chocolate is one of the things which helped him.

Edit2: I have a long, long history of all kinds of cf related issues, but I think the ear infections are the likely connection to my history of miss-hearing things.

Re: It's Gibberish, But Italian Pop Song Still Means Something

#48

Post by loupeabody »

pyre wrote: post #45
loupeabody wrote: post #39

That last quote about American English sounding like "anger born out of resignation" is a bit ominous. I'm fairly sure this Japanese band, White Ash, has nothing but pure gibberish as lyrics. I'm aware that some Japanese musicians, despite not really being able to effectively pronounce English words, will sing in English. Here though, I cannot pick out any English: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5RmmIS1AIQ If I'd on…

"I sang it with an angry tone because the theme was important. It was an anger born out of resignation. I brought to light the fact that people don't communicate." He sang it with an angry tone because he was angry. Nothing there says that "American English sounds like anger born out of resignation to non-English speakers."

Note that immediately after that point in the article:

But is that really what American English sounds like?

"Yes," he says. "Exactly like that."

I apologize if it's not totally clear in my original comment, but I was referring to Celentano's affirmation that American English sounds like anger born out of resignation.

Re: It's Gibberish, But Italian Pop Song Still Means Something

#49

Post by Steko »

Keisuke Kuwata doesn't sing gibberish but he has a very distinctive vocal style based on the American blues/folk/rock singers he grew up on. The lyrics are littered with English of course but even the Japanese lyrics are delivered with a pseudo-English rhythm.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-p3iNFsiv9Y

Re: It's Gibberish, But Italian Pop Song Still Means Something

#50

Post by derleth »

CKKim wrote: post #36
DanBC wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> which never fool me Really never, or do you just never notice? There was a great YouTube video here ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-cAnFbEXY0 ) - but it seems to have been removed by the user. Not sure if there's any way to find it now. It was Americans speaking gibberish, and it sounded pretty convincingly like language.

"Really never, or do you just never notice?" Indeed. Folks seem unbelievably harsh on accents they know not to be the native one, which is every time a famous actor does an accent , but all those no-names doing even not very good ones fly straight under their radar, making me highly skeptical it's not just confirmation bias. Christian Bale often keeps his American accents for interviews and press. There might be some…

> Folks seem unbelievably harsh on accents they know not to be the native one, which is every time a famous actor does an accent

Either Hugh Laurie isn't famous, or you don't have any idea he's British. ;)

Every time he plays House, he's doing a fake American accent. He just does it really, amazingly well.

Here's Hugh Laurie as the Prince of Wales (the total idiot) in a short segment from the series "Blackadder the Third":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOSYiT2iG08

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