[thaumasiotes]

> A song can have its lyrics translated/altered into an entirely different language and still carry the same weight.

This is not true. Try listening to "the same" song in two different languages that you can speak, one of which being the language the song was written in.

One of two things will be true:

(a) It is obvious which songs was originally written in that language and which is a translation.

(b) It is not obvious that the two songs are the same.

> I believe the correct term would be lyrics, not songs.

Nope. The lyrics are the song. Music with nothing but lyrics sung to a melody is still a song. Music without lyrics is not a song.

[NSMutableSet]

>Nope. The lyrics are the song. Music with nothing but lyrics sung to a melody is still a song. Music without lyrics is not a song.

You're pedantically correct according to the original definition of the word "song".

But in modern usage, the word is used interchangeably with "instrumental" and "track".

It's used to refer to everything as a whole, whether or not there are lyrics.

Lyricless music is not as popular today as it was during the peak of EDM, but instrumental tracks were/are still referred to as "songs", even though they technically did not contain a song, since there were no lyrics.

[someweirdperson]

I never noticed that specific definition of "song". There's an ege case. Is a track with lyrics consisting only of "oh"s and maybe some "ah"s a song? Wiktionary mentions lyrics [0], but I feel it's more about human vocals than a meaningful message.

[0] https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/song

[pronlover723]

Plenty of anime, jpop, and kpop songs translated and sung by fans in English. They do a great job of making the lyrics fit, rhyme, and feel like an English song.

I've actually been kind of shocked how good they are given how poor many professional subtitle translation are. Like recently watching Cyberpunk 2077 and the English subtitles are not remotely close to the Japanese dialog

[Kiro]

I never listen to lyrics. Even when I've heard a song hundreds of time I wouldn't be able to tell you what it is about.

For me, the vocals are just another instrument and it doesn't matter what the lyrics are or what language they are in.

[uup]

It's actually pretty common to separate music and lyric writing. For instance, I'm sure you recognize names like Puccini and Verdi as famous opera composers. It was very common for someone else to write the "lyrics" to their operas (called libretto in opera). For instance, both Puccini and Verdi had Francesco Maria Piave write libretto for multiple operas. And yet, we still think of Puccini and Verdi as having written their respective operas.

[ambicapter]

Counter example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLzjYXzkvWU

vs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PnOG67flRA

[thaumasiotes]

How is this supposed to be a counterexample? I'll have to lean on Google Translate for the French, but here are the first two verses of the English song:

    You may have the money
    But you've got to go
    It's sensible (it's sensible)
    And those endless seasons
    That go on and on
    Incredible

    But I'd sooner get out
    And remember where we went last year
    You said everything about it moved on your career
    If you want to go
    I'll take you back one day

Here are the first two verses of the French song:

    It's a corner [hidden spot?] lost
    on the Atlantic
    It's exotic (it's exotic)
    A secret corner
    under the palms
    It's fantastic

    I could show you
    how to get there, it's very easy
    Close your eyes and let your eyelashes tangle
    Here we are already
    Welcome to the bay

These songs are set to the same music, but they are otherwise unrelated to each other. This is like saying that Weird Al Yankovic translated Gangsta's Paradise into English.

[ambicapter]

> are otherwise unrelated to each other

Are you serious? Both songs are about going to "The Bay". Both songs compare The Bay to Berlin, London, Paris. Both of the choruses are literally "It feels so good , to be in the Bay".

If you're arguing that lyrics must be word-for-word translation for a song to be "translated", then that's an obnoxious strawman that I can't take seriously.

[thaumasiotes]

> Both songs are about going to "The Bay".

But in the English song, "the Bay" is an actual place in which the singer and a particular addressee have vacationed in the past, and in the French song, "the Bay" is an imaginary place which the singer invites a generic audience to indulge in.

Speaking of which, the English song is notionally sung to someone known to the singer, and the audience is conceptually overhearing it, while the French song is sung to the audience.

The two songs don't have anything in common. They both compare their bay to Berlin, London, and Paris, in the sense of saying that the Bay is not any of those places. Mount St. Helens is also not Berlin, London, or Paris. Have I just made a second translation of The Bay into English? Does it make any difference that Mount St. Helens is a volcano?