As a kid in Australia in the 1980s there was no getting away from the first 54 seconds of Brian Bennett’s New Horizons, which was used as the theme to channel 9’s cricket coverage. Over the long, hot Christmas school holidays you’d switch on the TV to try and find something to relieve your boredom (which was still preferable to being in school, naturally…) and find nothing but hours and hours of cricket – possibly the most boring sport ever devised. It was probably being commentated by Richie Benaud too.
So it’s downright bizarre to discover that past the 54 seconds mark New Horizons turns into the theme from a second-rank 1970s spy thriller!
Confirmed magical powers of the individual known as Ronnie James Dio:
Apotropaic hand gestures
Transforming foes into rats
Shape shifting into a frog
Please inform your local authorities of any further observed instances of magic use by the individual known as Ronnie James Dio. Remember – an alert community is a safe community!
The music of 100 Gecs is so bizarrely suited to my idiotic tastes that I find myself paranoid that the universe is a simulation created solely for my benefit.
It is my deep and strongly held conviction that to play the version of Pulp’s Common People that omits the second verse IS A CRIME.
Similarly, it is my deep and strongly held conviction that to play the version of Pulp’s Disco 2000 that omits the monologue IS A CRIME.
Furthermore, it is my deep and strongly held conviction that to play any version of Pulp’s Disco 2000 and not to sing along with the “OOOOOO OO-OO OO-OO-OO-OO” bits at the end IS A CRIME.
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!
Yes girls, boys and others, once again it’s time to vote for the ten best songs of the year in the Triple J Hottest 100!
Or rather it would be if I could find 10 songs worth voting for…
I have a list of seven excellent songs, but finding an additional three is currently stymieing me. There are two that I could put in but neither quite meets my standards for a vote-worthy track. Voting is open for quite a while yet so I’ve got time to try and fill out the list, but it is worryingly symptomatic of a modern music scene in the process of entirely losing its way.
(Or, you know, I’m just old).
In any case, here are the songs I intend to vote for,
Backseat of My Mind – Thelma Plum
You know when you hear a song for the very first time and it somehow fits into a hole in your brain that you didn’t know was there so snugly that you feel like you’ve known it for years? That’s the way it is for me with this song, which is my undoubted favourite for the entire year. Every second of it is aural perfection – including the electronic sounds hidden beneath the fade out.
(The dog is named Tex.)
Sirens – Flume featuring Caroline Polachek
Without Caroline Polachek’s ethereal vocal this track would be little more that a pile of sound effects snaffled from the dumpster out the back of Skrillex’s house. With it, it’s incredible!
Haircut – Alex the Astronaut
I’ve been a fan of Alex’s music ever since Not Worth Hiding because the unofficial anthem of the Marriage Equality non-binding-non-compulsory-postal-survey back in 2017 (call it a vote and I’ll kick you). They’ve been hitting it out of the park ever since with material that not just represent the autistic experience (and I presume the queer experience), but are just damn good songs on their own merits. This one is a downright joy-filled piece about figuring out and celebrating who you are. I challenge you not to belt out the chorus every time it comes on.
(I never made it to the glow worm cave either and it’s a pain that never stops!)
Forever Drunk – Peach PRC
I loved Peach’s first release Josh, but wasn’t terribly impressed by her second God is a Freak which I found didn’t have a lot going for it either musically or theologically. This one however is catchy as hell, even if I can’t help wondering if she has to pay royalties to Alphaville for the hook.
2 be Loved (Am I Ready) – Lizzo
Lizzo’s music has been wildly popular for the last few years, but none of it has ever appealed to me. I’ve got nothing against it, or against her, it’s just not my kind of music. This track however works for me. It’s great!
Big City Life – Luude and Mattafix
I was a big fan of Mattafix’s 2005 original, and this drum and bass remix takes everything good about it and gives it an energetic kick. Great work!
Summer in New York – Sofi Tukker
If you’re going to sample a classic then you’d better do something good with it. Sofi Tukker has made that grade by building a catchy as hell song around Suzanne Vega going “da-da-dada”. Suzanne was content to drink her coffee and watch the world go by but Sofi manages to make an entire day and night of it in one of the greatest cities on Earth (is she getting paid for all the name drops?)
So those are the seven tracks I’m voting for. As for the two I’m iffy about…
Grapefruit – Tove Lo
I quite like this track and it’s on an important subject, but there’s just something slightly off about that I can’t figure out. Maybe the blippety-bloppety sounds in the chorus? But I’m usually totally in favour of blippety-bloppety sounds? I really don’t know…
Coal Makes Me Come – DJ Scomo
I would like to lay claim to be being a mature and sober adult with some kind of standards, but this extremely juvenile remix of our former, unlamented Prime Minister explaining his deep contempt for the Australian people and his sensual love of fossil fuels makes me laugh like a drain, so I can’t.
News flash! While trying to track down the identity of Tove Lo’s song I actually stumbled over a couple of other recent tracks that are good enough for consideration. So it looks like I may not have a problem after all!
