Lost in Translation Vol. 15
The "name that tune" series with a twist. Can you reconstruct the original lyric after translation through half a dozen languages and identify the song?
Lost in Translation is a weekly “name that tune” series with a twist. Every Monday I’ll present a song lyric which has been run through half a dozen languages before back translation into English. The translation process transmogrifies the lyric into something quite unlike the original and the challenge is for you, Dear Reader, to attempt to decipher the lyric and name the tune. Every weekend I’ll publish a new post with the translated lyric along with the original and a YouTube video timestamped to the start of the lyric.
It’s Monday, which can only mean one thing—it’s time for another installment of Lost in Translation! As revealed yesterday, last week’s song was “The Distance”, from Cake’s second album, 1996’s Fashion Nugget. In an attempt to make it a tougher song I tightened up the genre, resulting in a less well known song which, nonetheless, was quickly solved. This week I’m going with a more popular and well-known song, a mid-90s female pop vocal track that was a smash hit globally. This may end up being one of the easiest tracks I’ve posted in this series—I expect at least one reader will be jumping into the comments shortly with the correct answer—but we play the game for a reason, so we’ll see!
On an editorial note, I’ve decided that I’ll soon be bringing the Lost in Translation series to an end. Given how efficient and accurate the translation tools have become, it’s becoming more and more difficult to find songs that are sufficiently obscured by the translation process to make it worth posting. After spending more than 90 minutes this morning trying out different lyrics, I only ended up with two suitable candidates. With half a dozen partially written longer form posts sitting in my Drafts folder that doesn’t feel like a productive or rewarding use of my writing time. With enough songs to last us through the end of June, a six month run of the series feels reasonable and is certainly longer than I expected this fun little musical game to last.
Are you enjoying Joy in the Journey? Why not hit the button above to automagically receive new posts in your inbox every time I publish!
Translated Lyric
Here’s the lyric for this week’s Lost in Translation:
The picture of happiness
slowly creeps towards me
When I think of it
My heartbeat quickens.
When he takes me
back and forth
If nobody’s scored the correct answer by midweek then I’ll be back on Notes with some more clues and on the weekend with the solution.
Hit me with your best shot folks!
Please head to the comments and let me know whether you’ve figured out this week’s song!!
Images of rapture creeping to me slowly! Mariah’s Fantasy?!
I figured it was a setup for Andy from the start!😀 I would never have gotten it anyway, but being on the West Coast of the US I have a distinct disadvantage unless I set my alarm for 4 AM.😴 Now I’m waiting for you to choose a song by Rush!🤣