But they aren't. The headline of that very article (ok, the subhed) notes that they aren't capable of writing Korean songs and don't try. This is repeated in the text:
> Carlebecker writes in English, and then Korean songwriters add new lyrics to her melodies
I believe the correct term would be lyrics, not songs.
A song can have its lyrics translated/altered into an entirely different language and still carry the same weight. Many pop songwriters would argue that the lyrics are one of the least important components.
Non-anglophone countries are full of such songs based on English language originals. Though this musical localization seems have be have been more popular in the past, for multiple reasons.
> 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.
>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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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?
