{"id":101095,"date":"2016-08-02T16:49:20","date_gmt":"2016-08-02T20:49:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=101095"},"modified":"2016-08-02T20:52:21","modified_gmt":"2016-08-03T00:52:21","slug":"on-transcribing-the-lyrics-to-pop-songs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/08\/02\/on-transcribing-the-lyrics-to-pop-songs\/","title":{"rendered":"On Transcribing the Lyrics to Pop Songs"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A<\/a>

Still from Adriano Celentano\u2019s\u00a0music video for\u00a0\u201cPrisencolinensinainciusol.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n

You really can\u2019t tell what a song is going to look like until you type it, and that fact itself is interesting to me. When you listen to a song, for instance, you don\u2019t know whether its \u201cstanzas\u201d are in quatrains or tercets or what. The stanzas and line breaks you install when you type the lyrics simply were not there before you typed them. They were not in your head, and they were not really in the song either.\u00a0<\/p>\n

You discover all kinds of things. For example, I recently typed up the words to Cream\u2019s \u201cWhite Room<\/a>\u201d (1968). Before doing that, I didn\u2019t know that the song does not rhyme. If someone had asked me if it rhymed, I would\u2019ve had to sing it to find out. It somehow seems<\/em> like it rhymes? But how is that possible.<\/p>\n

I go around telling people that 99 percent of songs rhyme. Is that true? It might not be. Maybe songs all seem like they rhyme, but when you actually check \u2026 ?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rick James\u2019s \u201cSuper Freak<\/a>\u201d (1981) has just a little dab of semi-rhyme (freak | magazines | meet<\/em>; and, of course, m\u00e9nage \u00e0 trois<\/em> | oo-la-la!<\/em>). But mostly it does not rhyme. Why did I not notice this before typing out the lyrics? (Again, I want to say the song \u201cseems\u201d like it rhymes. It appears that the thing I call the rhyme effect does not actually require rhyme.)<\/p>\n

It is pleasant, sometimes, to transcribe songs simply for the sake of the difficulty. I recently got down all the words to Willi One Blood\u2019s \u201cWhiney Whiney<\/a>,\u201d from the sound track to Dumb and Dumber<\/em> (1994). You wouldn\u2019t know the song from the movie; you have to have the sound track. So nobody knows what I\u2019m talking about.<\/p>\n

The song doesn\u2019t seem to admit of transcription, because it has all these machine-gun bursts of superheated, fake-Caribbean spangablasm. Even so, I think I got it. I submitted my version of the lyrics to some lyrics-finder website and, following peer review, I got a personal e-mail informing me that my work was accepted. Click on the hyperlink above and check the comment thread.<\/p>\n

My masterpiece, however, is my Anglophone transcript of \u201cPrisencolinensinainciusol<\/a>.\u201d It took hours to make, and it really is a useful piece of work. The song, cooked up by Adriano Celentano in 1972, is composed entirely of words that belong to no language at all, but which sounded to Celentano like English as it was sung in the American dance music of the period. Heavy<\/em> dance music. And he was not wrong; the song does sound like English. And, more importantly, it\u2019s a good song<\/em>. One chord, no content.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Check it out for yourself. Click on the link above, and sing along \u2026<\/p>\n

\n

[recitative]<\/strong><\/p>\n

Preezen-collin-ensinine-choozol<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/em>You de kohl mayn saywum
<\/em>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/em>preezen-collin-ensinine-choozol
<\/em>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/em>all right<\/em><\/p>\n

[music starts]<\/strong><\/p>\n

We d\u2019same t\u2019choose now\u00a0
hole\u00a0beel d\u2019same in a hole-rate\u00a0
maybe is de cuddle balls die<\/p>\n

Trrrrrrrrrr!\u00a0
chanz de my\u00a0b\u2019gee-d\u2019kohl
baby sustay\u00a0yeah been jo whoa<\/p>\n

We d\u2019same t\u2019choose now\u00a0
whole beel d\u2019same in a hole-rate\u00a0
maybe is de cuddle balls die<\/p>\n

Whether s\u2019sane aintchu de coffee steen\u00a0
you never truvva nuvva jerseyguhl\u00a0
baby j\u2019jam<\/p>\n

You de comin\u2019 up choose\u00a0
no bife f\u2019not soul\u00a0
hobo-hobo\u00a0dis gettin\u2019 louda\u00a0kubba no time<\/p>\n

Oh but divisistan\u00a0
lie d\u2019shoes d\u2019gubbaman\u00a0
you because tribimaht call dovr\u00e1y d\u2019girls<\/p>\n

Oh sanday …<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Ay ay zmai sezlin
<\/em>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0anyghels so gowin beezo
<\/em>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0eyes<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Y<\/em>ou de kohl mayn saywum
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/em><\/em>preezen-collin-ensinine-choozol\u00a0
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/em><\/em>all right<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0[metallic female voice:]<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/em>Ay ay zmine senflint
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/em>anygoals so gowin\u00a0beezo
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/em>eyes<\/p>\n

Preezen-collin-ensinine-choozol
<\/em>all right<\/em><\/p>\n

Well I s\u2019no schemin\u2019 aina given the sin\u00a0
t\u2019line t\u2019choozin-oava-jove ho hadda good time\u00a0
like faze t\u2019go<\/p>\n

We d\u2019sen in d\u2019sen\u00a0
in d\u2019shoes to gobbo ben\u00a0
is d\u2019two wullaguys they love a flow\u00a0
well de guy just ate<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/em>Ay ay smai chenslet
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/em>anyhills so gowin beezo
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/em>eyes<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/em>You d\u2019collin may de saywum
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/em>preezen-collin-ensinine-choozol
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/em>all right<\/p>\n

You doice y\u2019know\u00a0
billy zeekee hollomun dohl\u00a0
es baby d\u2019lie s\u2019like bikme ohl<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/em>Ay ay zmai senflen
<\/em>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/em>anyghesso gowin beezo
<\/em>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/em>eyes<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/em>You de kohl mayn d\u2019saywum
<\/em>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/em>preezen-collin-ensinine-choozol
<\/em>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/em>all right<\/em><\/p>\n

You doice y\u2019nop\u00a0
billy\u00a0zeekee hollomun dohl\u00a0
es baby-de-lak s\u2019lak blikme ohl<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Anthony Madrid\u00a0lives in Chicago. His poems have appeared in <\/em>Best American Poetry 2013,\u00a0<\/em>Boston Review, <\/em>Fence, <\/em>Harvard Review, <\/em>Lana Turner,<\/em> LIT,<\/em> and<\/em> Poetry. His first book is called<\/em> I Am Your Slave Now Do What I Say\u00a0<\/i>(Canarium Books, 2012).\u00a0He is a correspondent for the\u00a0<\/em>Daily.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You really can\u2019t tell what a song is going to look like until you type it, and that fact itself is interesting to me. When you listen to a song, for instance, you don\u2019t know whether its \u201cstanzas\u201d are in quatrains or tercets or what. The stanzas and line breaks you install when you type […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1005,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22700],"tags":[12488,23674,23587,23673,22908,938,23668,55,23676,23672,869,23664,687,13106,46,23675,7586,22944,18128,23665,23666,2427,13487,23667,23237,23671,23669,23670],"class_list":["post-101095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-our-correspondents","tag-12488","tag-adriano-celentano","tag-american","tag-anglophone","tag-anthony-madrid","tag-chicago","tag-cream","tag-dance","tag-dance-music","tag-dumb-and-dumber","tag-english","tag-italian-pop","tag-language","tag-lyrics","tag-music","tag-music-video","tag-nonsense","tag-our-correspondents","tag-pop-songs","tag-prisencolinensinainciusol","tag-rick-james","tag-seventies","tag-songs","tag-super-freak","tag-the-point","tag-whiney-whiney","tag-white-room","tag-willi-one-blood"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nOn Transcribing the Lyrics to Pop Songs<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I go around telling people that 99 percent of songs rhyme. 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