Fly, fly, pigeon girl, my beautiful pigeon girl, When I see you flying, I think about the birds in the sky, But you’re better than them ’cause you’re pigeon, And pigeon has much nicer eye,
You’re Maltese, Just like me, And like Nathan Buck-a-ley, And you’re also like that other Maltese person, Darren Gauci, He might win the Caulfield Cup, But I don’t mind, Because, All in all for me, You are my pigeon girl,
Fly, fly, pigeon girl, Fly for me?
Bye-Bye,
This – I hesitate to call it a ‘song’ – was submitted as a theme for the Pigeon Racing segment on Triple J’s breakfast show in the early 2000s, despite the fact that the Triple J breakfast show did not have (and never has had) a pigeon racing segment. It has lived rent free in my head ever since.
I drive ’round cities in a chariot, I get preferential treatment at the Marriott, — “Record Collection” Mark Ronson and the Business Intl
The New South Wales right have cocks like mastodons — “Dicktatorship”, TISM
Now you’re the only one here who can tell me if it’s true, That you love me, and I love me, — “Kiss me, Son of God”, They Might be Giants
You see the ANZAC legend neglected to mention, The mud, the fear, the blood, the tears, the tension, Dad’s recollection, beyond comprehension, Didn’t seem quite real until we were sent in, — “I was only 19”, The Herd
Überheblich, überlegen, Übernehmen, übergeben, Überraschen, überfallen, Deutschland, Deutschland über allen, — “Deutschland”, Rammstein
Music was a product, now it is a service, Major record labels, why you trying to hurt us? — “Download this Song”, MC Lars
I volunteered for the Army on my birthday, They draft the white trash first round here anyway, — “Copperhead Road”, Steve Earl
There is no horizon I cannot set my eyes on, — “The Ocean”, Lemon Demon
God bless the people in New York when they were attacked, God bless the children being bombed there in Iraq, God bless the goddamn junkie with a monkey on his back, God bless everybody under the sun, — “Something’s Gotta Give”, John Butler Trio
Watching for signs in an empty sky, We never thought that the rain would fall as the years went by, — “Children of the Sky”, Mike Batt
Scatman, fat man, black and white and brown man, Tell me ’bout the color of your soul, — “Scatman’s World”, Scatman John
Pills! Pills! Wonderful pills! Nothing quite like them for healing your ills! My body won’t mug me, And pain will not bug me, As long as you drug me, With wonderful pills!
It has come to my attention that there doesn’t seem to be a decent version of the lyrics to the Chasers’ appallingly obscene yet incredibly funny take on our appalling former Prime Minister’s intimate relationship with fossil fuels. I cannot let this stand, so here is my best shot at a transcription.
COAL MAKES ME CUM by DJ SCOMO (THE CHASER)
Fuck you, and your family, and the essential services you rely on, Right now – as a criminal – the thing I love is corruption, Fuck you other cunts facing floods and the bushfires, When disaster strikes I’m ready to go on vacation in Hawaii,
Coal makes me hard, coal makes me cum, My dick is always hard for coal, And it’s only getting harder, Coal makes me hard, coal makes me cum, But the thing I love about coal, Is it doesn’t run away in disasters,
All those build up, and when those floods build up, well, we know what happens, It makes me hard when I think about coal, New South Wales used to party hard and we endеd all of that, So we could have more coal, the dеstroying of fun, I want you cunts to know,
I’m a criminal with a capital ‘C’, I love coal! I’m a criminal, Mister, Mister, Mister, I want to destroy the world,
Coal makes me hard, coal makes me cum, My dick is always hard for coal, And it’s only just begun,
Bullying, bullying, bullying, and I want you cunts to die, China, China, China, being racist gets me hard, It’s Australia’s fault that I’m such a cunt, This election is a choice, For the destroying of lives, people would die, Attention to genocide,
Have I mentioned my strange hobby of translating Rammstein songs into English?
Jolly Neue Deutsche Härte minstrels Rammstein sure know how to construct a terrifying wall of Teutonic sound, and it’s a lot of fun to fight back against their particular style of sonic assault by singing along. However there’s something unsatisfying about growling out German words that you don’t understand and which no actual German would understand either because they’re not actually German words, they’re just your dime-store impersonation of what it sounds like Till Lindemann is muttering/bawling about.
“IN GOD ARISING VELL MY NAME IS IRON!” – Till Lindemann (Photo by Sven Mandel)
There are a few ways to deal with this. One – of course – would be to learn German. This however is a lot of hard work for someone as lazy as I am. Another would be to memorise the lyrics of every Rammstein song along with their correct pronunciations, but that would take up memory space that could be more profitably used to store odd facts about the history of London or the exact taxonomical relationships between members of the Latrodectus genus of widow spiders. So I choose the easy route and write English lyrics that attempt to preserve the general meaning of the German ones while fitting the tunes and rhyming in the right places.
This is not as difficult as might be thought. English and German are very closely related, both being members of the West Germanic language family (along with Dutch, Frisian, Yiddish and a few others), which means simple German sentences tend to be about the same length as and use similar words to their English equivalents. Many can be understood right away or with only a few seconds’ thought – for instance…
Wir haben ein Problem
Hier kommt die Kavallerie!
Die Katze ist gut, ja?
Hast du Schweinefleisch?
Mein Hovercraft ist voll von Aalen!
Oh, lass nicht zu, dass die Räder deines Corporation-Lastwagens, der schmutziges Wasser aus Löchern saugt, über einen armen alten Mann fahren!
As such, translating a song from German into English is fairly simple, especially when compared to doing the same for a song from a different language group (I once tried translating a song out of Moldovan and almost died).
So my latest attempt is an English version of the song that taught millions of people the wrong German word for “ten” – Sonne
(I’ve left the counting in German because it’s obvious what it is and sounds so much better than boring old “one, two, three”. Furthermore ‘vier’ sounds like ‘fear’ and ‘sechs’ like ‘sex’, the combination of which sum up Rammstein’s music pretty accurately…)
SONNE by RAMMSTEIN Translated into (mostly) English by Purple Wyrm
We’re all waiting for the light, Be afraid but don’t take fright, The sun is shining from my eyes…
Tonight the sunset will not come, And the world, it counts along,
Eins! Here comes the sun! Zwei! Here comes the sun! Drei! Of all the stars the brightest one! Vier! Here comes the sun!
The sun is shining from my palms, It can burn and blind and harm, When it breaks out of my grip, It falls upon your face and lips,
Tonight the sunset will not come, And the world, it counts along,
Eins! Here comes the sun! Zwei! Here comes the sun! Drei! Of all the stars the brightest one! Vier! Here comes the sun!
Fünf! Here comes the sun! Sechs! Here comes the sun! Sieben! Of all the stars the brightest one! Acht! Neun! Here comes the sun!
The sun is shining from my palms, It can burn and blind and harm, When it breaks out of my grip, It falls upon your face and lips, It forces hard against your chest, Digs it’s claws into your flesh, It hurls you down, your senses gone! And the world, it counts along!
Eins! Here comes the sun! Zwei! Here comes the sun! Drei! It is the brightest star of all! Vier! And from the sky will never fall!
Fünf! Here comes the sun! Sechs! Here comes the sun! Sieben! Of all the stars the brightest one! Acht! Neun! Here comes the sun!
It’s a clear black night, a place remote, Robert Stack is on the corner in a pale trench-coat, Got the mystery cases that remain unsolved, Robert Stack is gonna lay out some trails gone cold,
He’s got all the reports, tracked the witness down, Who didn’t think that it could happen in their own hometown, He’s droppin’ all the facts ’cause it’s not too late, For Robert Stack and Unsolved Mysteries to investigate…
As is my way, I have once again become utterly captivated by a song. This time around it’s Zero by New Zealand’s own Alastair Riddell.
Now, some may say I’m late to the party, the song in question having been released 41 years ago, but I prefer to think of myself as making a deliberately delayed dramatic entrance. In any case I can hardly be blamed for not knowing a song that was only released in a foreign country and which (completely unfairly by the way) utterly failed to make an impact there. In any case it’s making an impact now, on me, and that’s what matters.
It is also my way to – when captured by a song – want to know the words so I can sing along and possibly even dance in an extremely undignified manner. These days this is pretty easy, as the lyrics to every song you could ever want are freely available online. Except it seems those of Zero. In digital terms the song barely seems to exist. This could not be allowed to stand, so I have done my best to transcribe it myself and present it here for the education and edification of the world.
Zero – Alastair Riddell
Zero has a way, she’s often bad, Plays round, I’m always sad, She knows what to do, She’s a royal pilot too, oh,
She stares into my eyes, Should see her lover’s eyes, She’s a light above, A light to guide, A light, What she knows,
Commander Zero, Hello Zero, I want you Zero tonight, Won’t you come in on my airwaves? Commander Zero, Hello Zero, A special feeling today, Well you ought to see the sparkle in her eyes,
Last night I dated Zero, I wanted her to see, That as no one else will do, The one she needs is me,
She laughed and shook her head, So foolish and serene, She looked so beautiful, Her flight suit was in green,
Commander Zero, Hello Zero, I want you Zero tonight, Won’t you come in on my airwaves? Commander Zero, Hello Zero, A special feeling today, Well you ought to see the sparkle in her eyes,
Zero, Zero, No one knows like Zero, She’s got the world in her hands, Zero, What am I going to do? (What am I going to do?)
Commander Zero, Hello Zero, I want you Zero tonight, Won’t you come in on my airwaves? Commander Zero, Hello Zero, A special feeling today, With your, Strange hair and, Strange eyes and, That’s why I love you,
And, because why not, here’s another attempt at transcribing a Moped track. This time their incandescent version of Abba’s Dancing Queen (including a sneaky shout out to Snap!)
(By the way I’m not terribly excited about the shout out, the band Snap! actually included the exclamation mark in their name, making it rather difficult to discuss them in a calm manner. It was the nineties, we did things differently then.)
Dancing Queen – Moped
Two-thousand and four! You know the score! Come on people! Let’s get busy with the fizzy! Insane-ia-ism!
You can dance, you can dance, Party people! Having the time of your life, I wanna see you shake your booty with a significant degree of confidence tonight! Yes! Ooh, see that girl, watch that scene, Digging the dancing queen,
In dancing queen!
Oh yes!
That’s right!
Friday night and the lights are hot, Hangin’ with Moped give it all you got, Little bit of fresh flavour, I’m gonna make you dance, We’re in the mood for some trance,
Only Moped could be those guys, I’m quite small while the other two are high, Bumping in your disco, we’re coming in your ears, In brand new underpants,
And when you get the chance, You are the dancing queen, young and sweet only seventeen, It’s not eighteen but it’s legal! Dancing queen, feel the meat from a tangerine, oh yeah! Arrr-aargh! You can dance, Yes! You can jive, having the time of your life, You’re twisting the lemons man! See that girl, My lemons! Watch that scene, Whip it! Digging the dancing queen, Arrr-aargh!
Urrrrrrrrrrrrr!
You’ve got to push the groove and pump it up to the max, We’re like a train to your brain laying down nineteen fresh tracks, We’ll always run to the rhythm, get down with the flow, We’re bigger than the Beatles! You do it – Darius! Duh-uhhh,
Yes! That’s right! I’m serious as eczema when I’m playing on my decks!
Huh!
You are the dancing queen, young and sweet only seventeen, Dancing queen! She’s bootiful! Really bootiful! You are the dancing queen, young and sweet only seventeen, Inhale! Exhale! Don’t forget to breathe! You are the dancing queen,
It is, in my opinion, a great crime that the lyrics to Moped’s various reinterpretations of rock and pop classics do not seem to be available online.
To understand Moped there are a few things you need to be aware of. For instance, the existence of Scooter – a German dance group who specialise in taking samples of other people’s songs, putting a dance beat behind them and then shouting random nonsense over the top.
It also helps to know that Scooter had a mainstream hit in 2002 with a piece based around Supertramp’s Logical Song.
And the final piece of the puzzle is that in the wake of Scooter’s Logical Song, some fun loving British lads created a parody group named Moped and sent a pastiche of Scooter’s style – based around Coldplay’s Clocks – into the popular Chris Moyles radio show, which inexplicably decided to play it.
And then Moped kept doing it, and the rest is history.
Anyway, I find their stuff hilarious and thought it was abut time their unique interpretations of the modern dance form got some love, so here’s my best attempt at the lyrics of their spectacular cover of the Guns N’ Roses classic Sweet Child of Mine.
Sweet Child of Mine – Moped
Yes! Moped are back, going back in time like Doctor Who! But we don’t have a TARDIS. But we do have a Talbot Horizon…
Oh-wo-wo-wo sweet child of mine!
This time we’re rocking for the UK Posse. Cream! Gatecrasher! Nexus Wine Bar! Crystal! And Joker! In between the kebab shop and the taxi rank!
Guns n’ Roses are hot, and it seems to me, That we’re back on the remix in 2003, Yes, Moped are phat! It’s satisfaction guarantee! (Moped are subject to status, terms and conditions apply, ask for written details)
Now and then when I feel the base, It takes me away to that raving place, And if I rave too long, I’ll probably miss my last bus and it’s a long walk back to Battenburg let me tell you…
Yes!
Oh-oh-oh sweet child of mine, Irritation for the nation! Oo-oo-oo sweet love of mine, Mmmmm-nice!
She’s got flavour and she’s all gravy, But I’ve absolutely no idea what that means, and, and now I’ve missed my place in the verse, and, I’ll catch up, it’s coming up in a little bit there, eh, here we go!
Her hair reminds me of the one safe place, Like Ibiza or Clacton-on-Sea, We go there all of the time you know, To get fresh with the Moped Posse,
Here we go!
Oh-oh-oh sweet child of mine, Fresh with the flavour! Oo-oo-oo sweet love of mine, Freestyle! Key-change!
Oh-oh-oh sweet child of mine oh-oh-oh! Bring back thats beats! Oo-oo-oo sweet love of mine, Moonshanka!
Arrr-agh!
I’m the wide runner, I’m the big hitter, You can’t get better than quick-fit fitter, Up, fork, you know the score, Don’t leave towels on the bathroom floor, Clunk, click, Chas and Dave, UK Posse gonna hear me rave, I’m the rhythm police, the baseline protector, When I say ‘bo’ you say ‘selector’, Hick, schlep, bacon and eggs, Guns N’ Roses, they have legs, I’m the lord of the dance, I’m hung like fire, This Moped vibe gonna take you higher, I-I-I-I can’t find my way out of the recording studio, where do we go now?
