I remember in my college music appreciation class the professor talked about the difficulty in translating songs, and mentioned something as simple as syllabification mismatches. The example given was translating a piece from a German composer (Bach, if memory serves) in which the word "Hölle" was translated as "Hell." The problem was that the two German syllables were sung at different pitches, and so when the singers tried to sing the monosyllabic English word over two distinct pitches, it sounded horrendous. I could only imagine the sorts of problems that would arise if one tried to translate the lyrics to "One."
So tell me how you really feel about schlager music.
Joy,
Lynn
