Songs Written and Sung in Languages Other than English

I remember hearing this song (and seeing this video) way back when, but for years I couldn't for the life of me remember the name of the singer (or the name of the song). I only knew he hailed from an African country. One day in desperation I ploughed through lists of African singers of the 1980s and '90s until I happened upon the name Wes and then it all quickly fell into place. I discovered Wes came from Cameroon and the gorgeous song in question, "Alane", is sung in the Duala language:

I grew up on a lot of different music, including a lot of foreign music.
We seemed to get quite a bit of it here in Australia during the 50's and 60's.
This one was a huge hit 'apparently' and it's embedded into my brain, as I've heard it all my life.
Still a favorite of mine...
Ivo Robic - Morgen (1959)


Being a budding guitar player, I was totally knocked out when The Ventures covered it as a instrumental version in 1960.
While there recording does not do that much for me now, it was wonderful learning and trying to copy it without any sheet music/internet help.
Great memories.

I've lifted this from my "1966" thread and tweaked it where appropriate. In that year, Jacques Dutronc introduced to the world what has been described as "French garage rock". "Et Moi, Et Moi, Et Moi" broke with the French chanson tradition; Dutronc and his compatriot Michel Polnareff (see earlier in this thread) took French pop along a new path that absorbed the prevailing Western pop genres without merely copying them.

From Dutronc's debut album, this is the closing track, which I recall hearing on UK "pirate" radio at the time; either as the flip of "Et Moi..." or released later in its own right. The video of "Mini-Mini-Mini", which never fails to bring a smile to my face, features Dutronc's future wife, the world-famous French balladeer Françoise Hardy:

Hi Lizzie. I'm quite happy to help you out until then! 

Here you go. I remember this song. It's good to put a face to the voice! (There was another foreign-language US #1 around that time, "Dominique" by The Singing Nun, with a tragic story of its own.) 

I bought Ágætis Byrjun (1999) by the Icelandic band Sigur after reading about it, a strategy that more often than not has gone wrong -- but not this time. The band's singer, the multi-instrumentalist Jónsi, sings most of it, including the track linked below, in his own language, with two forays into Vonlenska, "a form of gibberish vocals that fits to the music".

On "Flugufrelsarinn", the fourth track on Ágætis Byrjun, the distant chord first beginning its protracted crescendo at 1:50 reminds me, for better or for worse, of an engraving by William Blake entitled The Nile, in which Blake introduces "an aged figure with vast beard and outstretched arms who advances like a low cloud across the heavens" (from Kathleen Raine, William Blake, Thames & Hudson: 1970, pp. 32-33):





en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%81g%C3%A6tis_byrjun

I heard this on the Sirius XM channel Little Steven's Underground Garage. Liked it so much I bought the EP download. (Same song, different arrangements; at least one in English.)

Olivia Jean & April March -- "Let's Go" / "Allons-y"

Hi Lizzie. Yes indeed. "Kalimankou Denkou" is track three on this CD by The Bulgarian State Television Female Vocal Choir. I bought it after hearing another track on Dutch radio and it's a stunner from start to finish. "Kalimankou Denkou" is about as close as you're going to get to the sung equivalent of crying:

As [deleted] explains on Reddit: "I actually found a translation here and it's pretty accurate. It even has a short explanation. Just to add a couple of things: калимана/kalimana is a dialectal word for godmother (калиманко/kalimanko is the vocative form); Денко/Denko is the vocative form of the name Денка/Denka; мари/mari doesn't really have an English translation, it's an interjection used to reinforce a phrase when addressing a woman, it's archaic/dialectal nowadays."

"God-mother, you, Denka, you beautiful one,
Until now you were, you, Denka, my god-mother,
From now on, you, Denka, you are my first love.

"You've burnt me, you, Denka, you've scalded me.
You've made of me, you, Denka, god-mother, a dry log.
A dry log, you, Denka, god-mother, a walnut tree log."

I [jk] see the French name for "Kalimankou Denkou" is "La Veillée", which translates as "The Vigil". This makes more sense than "The Evening Gathering", its translation in the album's wiki.

That's amazing! And all quite reverently done. The most bizarre -- one might even say sadistic -- use of their music occurs at the start and end* of "Home", a track by The God Machine on their 1993 album Scenes from the Second Storey. I only know this because a colleague lent me the album. Part of me was horrified; the other part thought it was a great joke and showed the lads had a sense of humour. "Vocal on 'Home' by the Voix de Bulgares [sic]", as the album liner notes delicately put it. "Home" was actually a hit single in the UK, peaking there at #65 in January 1993. You have been warned!



en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scenes_from_the_Second_Storey


* Maybe it's been worked into the body of the song at odd moments as well (I don't possess headphones)