Today, I'm offering up a uniquely odd translation of "A Visit From St. Nicholas", aka "'Twas the Night Before Christmas", as read by yours truly, at a party a few years ago.
For the last several years, I have been amusing myself, and certain friends and acquaintances, by taking the lyrics of songs, and running them through my favorite internet translation website. The results can be hilarious, mystifying, touching or downright strange. The path I use is English to German to French to Italian to Spanish to Italian to French to German to English. Sometimes words get "stuck" in another language, and often I have to choose between a choice of translated words - usually between "he/she/it" or "they/them", which I do at random, without looking at the surrounding text.
Song lyrics often work well, but story songs and poetry work the best, and one of the best translations I've come up with was for "A Visit From St. Nicholas". How to explain the following translations:
"He was dressed all in fur" becomes "He will attract everything in skin"
"The stump of a pipe" becomes "The stump of a management"
"On Donner and Blitzen!" becomes "Since above Ton and Lance of the Lightnings!"
As mentioned above, this recording is of me, at one of the musical parties my friends and I hold once or twice a year. I would have done better to read my text out loud beforehand to avoid some of the laughing breakdowns, but hopefully, that will not get in the way of your enjoyment, if you are the type for whom this sort of wordplay is appealing.
Bob Purse: A Visit of Sacred Nicolàs (MP3)
The full text I read will be in the continuation of the post, below:
A VISIT OF SACRED NICOLÁS
This was Christmas, according to everything for the house,
before the night a creature was not enthusiastic, so not a rat.
The ground floors were hung chimney before her
Main interest, in the hopes, this Saint nicholas would be there soon.
The children are crouching quite heartily for itself in formed her,
during visions of the sugar plums into its heads he danced.
And mommy in her tissue and me in my cap,
if our brains were satisfied alone with the nap of a long winter.
If there from on the blanket a certain tick bore,
I have my bed jumped in order to see she that he, the matter, was.
I steered street at the window to a lightning,
if it has geabrissen, you process the door,
and he threw into the air, I mutilate she.
The moon on the breast of the new redeemable snow
if it gave the at noon clarity to the objects this he too much at
the rear so my he eyes, that they are amazed,
but a miniature sleigh and eight inferior reindeers.
With a small old chauffeur, much I lives and fast, soon,
I knew that is he the Saint hit must.
Faster than eagles, their courses, from that this she would have come,
and he whistled, and it screamed, and she reminded them of her Names:
"Now dasher! Now dancers!
Now prancer and he hides!
Since above comet! Since above cupid!
Since above ton and lance of the lightnings!
At the top of the column hall!
At the top of the wall!
Now dies eclipsed! Eclipsed dead person!
Each deceased overshadowed!"
As drily this before the tornado fly the leaves wildly,
if they find an obstacle, mountain at the heaven,
because I exceed the courses, that flew, at the blanket,
with which so from toys nicholas full sleighs and Saint.
And then in a sparkle, I heard on the blanket
this the done one, from, to jump, and the fact, to scratch from each small nail.
As I pulled my head and I rotated around,
he came during the Chimney sanctify nicholas with a border.
He will attract everything in skin, from their proof at its foot,
and his clothing becomes everything with the ash and the soot stained.
One package of toys, that it a hawker as
Summer on their backs and them threw, seems, that it opens alone his crate.
His eyes, as they glistened! His dimples, as happy!
His cheeks were wormy like, his nose as a cherry!
Small mouth be become hoist more in funny way like one,
I turn, and the beard on his chin was like her knows it snows.
The stump of a management, that it stopped hermetically in their teeth
and the smoke, the her top like one put on, ring.
He had a wide face and a small round stomach,
that fluctuated as he laughed, you of frost completely a bowl.
He was more cheerfully fat man and pleasantly a right the old elf,
and I laughed as I saw him despite myself.
A move of his eye and soon a rotation there was of their head
to know me that I didn't have not only anything to fear.
He didn't speak with the voice, but he went exactly at his work,
and he has all ground floors filled that then was turned with a push.
And the fact, to put thier fingers of his nose at the side,
and on the chimney, he rose when giving a sign of the head.
He have give more a pipe at their sleighs, jumped his team,
and she vanished everything she flew like the down of an iron top.
But I intended to shout the matter before I would see pits,
"the Christmas contentment at the everything, and at a whole maid harms"!
Funny, I didn't know anyone else did this. I ran the lyrics of OK COMPUTER through babelfish a few years ago, from English to Portugese and back. The results were bizarre and often hilarious. You can read them here: http://www.geocities.com/joygrenade/okcportugese.html
Posted by: Michael | December 25, 2008 at 06:49 AM
I wish that snow were redeemable.
Posted by: stu | December 26, 2008 at 08:32 PM
I was at the gathering where Bob debuted this - it was November of 2004 - and listening to it STILL makes me darn-near wet myself. Not an easy thing to do to me, considering that I've known Bob (and Stu) for over 30 years! Some of the things that Bob has himself recorded are as strange as anything he posts, and he truly has a knack for the bizarre. Hopefully he will post more of his original content in the future. BTW, Bob, when exactly IS 'The Year Of Large Jeans'?
Posted by: James B. Ricks, III | April 13, 2009 at 03:24 PM