MetaChat - It's finally downloadable!

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08 September 2005

It's finally downloadable! My weirdest foreign language cover. Yousendit is working for me again. Enjoy! Matteo get your ass in gear and check the translation.

post by: jonmc at: 19:53 | 17 comments

Creepy. And, deleted.

posted by interrobang 08 September | 20:33

weird. and, deleted :) What's it a cover of?

posted by dhruva 08 September | 20:40

Jesus, are you guys that young? It's a cover of "They're Coming To Take Me Away, Ha-Haa!" (yousendit again) by Napoleon XIV, one of the wiggiest novelty artists of all time, and a staple of the Dr. Demento show. It was a huge hit in 1966, and the other songs are even goofier. The original link was to an Italian version. For some reason there were boatloads of Italian language versions of American and British pop hits. That one was one of the oddest. For "alternative" minded folks some of you have a low tolerance for weirdness.

posted by jonmc 08 September | 20:47

I recognized it, jon. I just didn't want to hear it again.

posted by interrobang 08 September | 20:52

But, did the cover the B-side of the original single too?

posted by eekacat 08 September | 21:12

THEY, bigbootTHEY

posted by eekacat 08 September | 21:14

yeah NOW the cover sounds better :) /young un

posted by dhruva 08 September | 21:15

I just want matteo to tell us how closely the cover follows the original, lyrically speaking. My Italian is very limited.

posted by jonmc 08 September | 21:19

There were a bunch of Italian tourists living near me in the dorms once in college, and all they listened to were crappy foreign language covers of crappy American pop songs. It was excruciating.

But this is good.

posted by muddgirl 08 September | 22:05

I heard a really insane foreign language version of Safety Dance a while back. No mp3 though, sadly.

posted by weretable and the undead chairs 08 September | 22:17

awesome, thanks!

posted by jann 08 September | 22:43

we discovered a new kind of sound

different from all the others

guitar drums bass cymbals

a thousand watts

they come to take us away

butterflies friends

we are the new artists of noise

nobody is like us

we're better than the rolling stones and the kinks

nurses in white aprons come to take us away

we are modern art's pioneers

but they want to take us away

(Unintelligible)

posted by matteo 08 September | 23:43

are you pulling our legs?

(I'm fairly sure you are,but it can't hurt to ask)

posted by jonmc 08 September | 23:45

Of course, if you're not kidding that's fascinating since those lyrics bear no resemblance at all to the original, except for the general tone.

Freaky.

posted by jonmc 08 September | 23:54

funny i just heard it as (Unintelligible)

posted by dhruva 08 September | 23:57

ask languagehat if you don't believe me, giovanni. that's what the lyrics say, amico mio.

posted by matteo 09 September | 01:01

I believe you, it just seems so incredibly strange to me that they'd take a song who's appeal was funny lyrics about going nuts and translate it as some kind of musical boast. Kind of defeats the purpose. Or maybe a translation of the original lyrics wouldn't sing too well. In which case, scrap the whole enterprise, says I. I've got lots of these "Beat Italia," records from the 60's. I wonder if they're all as lyrically dissonant.

posted by jonmc 09 September | 09:39

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