Lied to by Rammstein

[ciphergoth]

If you don't know the song, this won't make any sense to you.

"Du
Du hast
Du hast mich
Du hast mich gefragt
Du hast mich gefragt und ich hab nichts gesagt"

"You
You hate
You hate me
You hate me to say
You hate me to say, and I did not obey"

(Rammstein - Du Hast)

Wow, it rhymes in English too! The weird thing is, how come "gesagt" means "obey"? It looks like "say" to me.

(looks up "frage" in dictionary)

And "gefragt" means "question"? This isn't right!

And it isn't.

http://24.112.27.236/articles/counterpoint-1198.html

With the help of my handy German dictionary and Babel Fish, here's what I get:

"You
You have
You have me
You have asked me
You have asked me, and I said nothing."

"Willst du bis der Tod euch scheidet treu ihr sein für alle Tage? Nein!
Willst du bis zum Tod der Scheide sie lieben auch in schlechten Tagen? Nein!"

"Do you want, until death divorces you, to be faithful for her for all days? No!
Do you want, until the death of the sheath, to love her even on bad days? No!"

(contrast with the "official" translations: http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Disco/4752/lyrics.html)

Bloody hell. Lied to on the lyrics sheet printed with the album. *sigh*...

Comments

Rammstein Translations ...

[bootpunk.livejournal.com]

This has been a heated topic between my German-speaking mates & me ever since Rammstein released English versions of their songs. The lyrics for Du Hast and Engel are substantially different when translated into English, with Du Hast being completely odd - the second translation above is what the German actually says - and Engel being just plain shitty compared to the German. I guess "Only when you sleep in the clouds, can you see Heaven" is a bit hard to get to scan in English tho'. Hmmm, that page of translations you quoted looks pretty wide of the mark too - some of them look like they've been done by non-German speakers with German-English dictionaries.

There is a long history of this sort of thing tho'. Nena's 99 Red Balloons was a lot sillier than the German original. German seems to scan/rhyme easier than English at times. But my German is pretty lousy at the moment - I've started working on it again, as I'm probably in Switzerland for Xmas.