Music meme!

[rikibeth]

--Pick a song everyone knows.
--Take the lyrics to babelfish (http://babelfish.altavista.com/tr) and translate English to German to French to English.
--Copy out the result and give clues and see who can guess the song. Screen comments so no one cheats!

A song EVERYONE knows, huh?

-- Was released in 1971

-- Was never released as a single

-- Was played as the last song at EVERY school dance I EVER went to, even though it's really pretty terrible as a slow dance

An injury which has surely all those, gives it is a gold sparkles and it buys a staircase with the sky. For if it there it receives, knows, if all the memories with one are closed the word which can receive it that it came. Of Ooh, ooh and they buy a staircase with the sky. There is a sign on the wall, but it would like to be sure, ' the cause which you know that sometimes, of the words two importances have. In a tree by all sometimes the brook, a bird of song which sings, of our thoughts misgiven has there. Ooh, forms it me miracle, of Ooh, forms to me miracle to him. There is a feeling which I receive, if I look in the west, and my spirit to walk for the abandonment. In my thoughts, I saw the rings of smoke by the trees and the voices of those which upright looking at. It forms of Ooh, me miracle, of Ooh, forms to really me miracle to him. And that murmured to him soon, if we lead all the call then the melody Pfeifer to conclude us. And a new day is born for those which are a long time and the forests echo with the laughter. If it is not Geschaeftigkeit precipitated in their hedgerow, alarm now has, these are to you there precisely a spring which can the queen for is clean. There is to be able to go two manners, you, but in the long run the calm time ago which is put in circuit at road to modify you. It forms and me miracle. Your head whirrs and it does not suit you, if you do not know, Pfeifers who calls you, to connect it, dear injury, can the wind intend to roast and knew you your lies of staircase on the murmuring wind. And as we roll up our shades on to the bottom the road which are higher than our heart. There, an injury us that all know, with which white light shines and to show would like goes, as ev' rything with gold still turns. And if you very strongly hear, the melody comes finally to you. If all are, all is one and to be a rock and not to roll. And it buys a staircase with the sky.

Heh. Pretty easy...

ETA: Everyone got it, which didn't surprise me a bit. What surprised me were the people who actually put a question mark after their answer. You young'uns...

Comments

[beetiger.livejournal.com]

Obvious, but strangely lovely.

[simplykimberly.livejournal.com]

LOL ... that's great! Stairway to heaven, of course ;)

[shoeless-girl.livejournal.com]

Stairway to Heaven :)

[mybleubird.livejournal.com]

Stairway to Heaven.

[ygrane.livejournal.com]

Stairway to Heaven.

Even I got this one.

^_^

.....and I sort of like these lyrics better.

[wyomingnot.livejournal.com]

...with those hints you don't even need to look at the lyrics.

*snicker*

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I know! Especially the last. :)

[zdashamber.livejournal.com]

Stairway! Yaaay! "And it buys a staircase with the sky." Excellent.

[djinnthespazz.livejournal.com]

Too easy.

It tried Cohen's 'Everybody Knows' and Styx' 'Paradise Theatre,' and they weren't obscure enough to even post. eh.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

You ought to see what it did to Shriekback's "Nemesis," over at cluegirl's journal!

[electricandroid.livejournal.com]

I KNOW I KNOW... Stairway to Heaven...

Except how "There's a lady whos sure" becomes "An injury which has surely all those..."

My god.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

I wondered about that myself.

[madpiratebippy.livejournal.com]

Stairway to Heaven?

[iibnf.livejournal.com]

Staircase to heaven? Man, I hate that song.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

StairCASE? Is this some Australian thing?

[daniellec.livejournal.com]

Could it be Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven?

[feste-sylvain.livejournal.com]

Um, that is Stairway to Heaven, right? Not too many forests echoing with laughter, more's the pity.

[cleverthylacine]

Stairway to Heaven.

[arionrhod.livejournal.com]

Stairway to Heaven, Led Zeppelin! :D

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

*snort*

Stairway to Heaven!

[catya.livejournal.com]

too funny... (stairway to heaven, natch)

[follybard.livejournal.com]

"If it is not Geschaeftigkeit precipitated in their hedgerow...."

I guess there's not a good French word for "bustle"?

I'm laughing so hard now. And so is my friend Scott, to whom I'm reading it out loud.... :)

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

There OUGHT to be a good French word for "bustle," but I am not sure that the English homonym for the commotion and the article of clothing carries over to German, and I don't know enough German to know what that word they're using for "bustle" back-translates as, and clearly whatever it is hasn't got a correspondence in Babelfish's French list.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Hee! "Stairway to Heaven."

Now stuck in my head, too. :-)

[webbapettigrew.livejournal.com]

Stairway to Heaven?

[cluegirl.livejournal.com]

Stairway to heaven!

[la-directora.livejournal.com]

Uh...I'm thinking "Stairway to Heaven". It almost translated directly.

[the-dala.livejournal.com]

Oh, HEE! I wonder if the guitar solo translates as well...:)

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

The guitar solo that utterly ruins the song as a slow dance, yes! I don't think it needs translating -- it's pretty much the "Wayne's World" "May I help you?" riff!

Hee!

&*@#! Stairway to *(&#! Heaven

[actual-size.livejournal.com]

Good grief, did every school do this? Was it some kind of rule? Did the Board of Education say they had to play it?

Re: &*@#! Stairway to *(&#! Heaven

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

I'm sure it must have been some sort of rule, even if not thought up by the Board of Education.

My other choice for "song everyone knows" would have been the Time Warp.

[greeneyes-rpi.livejournal.com]

Cute. I'll have to try this. :)

Oooh!

[lordavon.livejournal.com]

Stairway to Heaven!!

[jldecker.livejournal.com]

STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN!!!!

::laughs ass off at translation gnomes::

[dpolicar]

Well, this has to be Stairway to Heaven, but I'm astonished by how mangled the result is.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure it's the German-to-French link that does the brunt of the mangling, myself.

[tikvah.livejournal.com]

Stairway to Heaven, of course. *snicker*

[mcroft.livejournal.com]

yep. Ever hear it as a bagpipe duet?

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

No! Recorded anywhere as such, or just played at your wedding?

[labellerose.livejournal.com]

Stairway to Heaven..I'm feelin' the nostalgia!

[goldfired.livejournal.com]

Led Zeppelin - Stairway to Heaven

[princejvstin.livejournal.com]

Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin.

[kcarp.livejournal.com]

Ok, coincidence central.

Sunday I was driving our babysitter (sophomore in high school) home and she was remarking that she found a website where "someone obviously had a lot of time on his hands" as he'd gone to the "altavista translator site" and translated things into German then back to English. (Can I say that it's weird to hear them call it 'altavista' when we all know it as Babelfish? Particularly as this teen HAS read the Hitchhiker books?)

A couple of minutes later, the song translated above came on the radio. I mentioned the fact that a UH professor's final exam included "translate this given verse of song into Spanish" and that given that the song makes limited sense in ENGLISH, it wasn't the easiest of translations.

And then I blew her mind by pointing out that said group included a number of Tolkein references in their songs.

[a_belladonna]

Er, "Stairway to heaven"?

[bassfingers.livejournal.com]

Stairway to Heaven, of course!

[serenya-loreden.livejournal.com]

And she's buying the staircase to heaven.....