Today I was joined by 4 students to discuss "Songs with music from another country, but with lyrics in local language".
Before talking about music, I asked what time people in different countries start greeting each other with "Good evening" rather than "Good afternoon" or "Good day".
Then I asked who is going to watch the Superbowl (American football championship) this weekend. To my surprise, most of the students didn't plan on watching it!
It's too bad that due to Covid I couldn't invite the local student to come watch the game with me. Back in February 2015 I watched the Seahawks in Superbowl loss with one of my Language of Music friends plus some of his friends from Mexico. It was fun to share that very American cultural event with international people. Too bad I couldn't do it this year... hopefully next year!
The Superbowl is of course interesting as the championship game for the season, but it is equally interesting for the commercials that are shown. As an example, I showed a commercial which will be shown on Friday about new electric vehicles by GM (starring Will Ferrell).
Ok, now on to music!
The first song chosen is originally Japanese, but re-done in Taiwanese:
Taiwanese version
Obviously the melody is the same, but the translated lyrics are also the same concept (about a couple breaking up) even if it is not a direct translation.
The student explained that old Taiwanese people like this style of music. Some companies use this particular melody to appeal to older people.
He said that when he was in high school, many of his friends liked the old songs, especially when drinking beer.
Our Japanese student said this musical style is called "enka" (info). All enka songs are about breaking up, usually sung by a male and a female singer.
This song is very popular in Mexico -- just this one video has over 1 billions views!
People dance to it in the streets.
The musical style is called Colombian Cumbia (info); it is originally from Colombia. It is a song for dancing, usually dance as a man/woman couple. But generally the women dance better than the men (as usual around the world, hahaha!).
The student said that when he was young he didn't like cumbia music, but while living in the States, he longed for it.
This song shows Stromae's African roots, but contemporary Belgian life.
This song was released as song for the Belgian team at the 2014 football (soccer) World Cup. Because it was connected to football/soccer, it was very popular at the time.
The student who chose it said that this song is often used in French classes for people learning French language because it is easy for non-native speakers to understand.
The next student was trying to make a choice of which song to play based on what we had heard so far. I taught the class the phrase, "He is making a decision on the fly" (it means he is making a decision right at this moment).
I am almost certain that the Champs-Elysee is a much prettier and romantic place than Waterloo Road!
One of the other students recognized this song from a punk band that he likes. Here's the version by NoFX.
With that, out time for conversation for the day was over. I didn't have a chance to play my choice for the them, so here it is:
My choice doesn't exactly fit the theme in terms of geography, but it has Ben singing a direct English translation of Vanessa's Portuguese lyrics.
Next week, in preparation of Valentine's Day on 14 February, we will talk about love songs!
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