Ask HN: What is your best native song that is unknown due to language barrier?

75 points by internetbird 5 years ago | 46 comments

Sometimes I wished more people could know some of my amazing childhood songs which are unknown due to the language they are sang at and the country in which they became popular. I wonder are there songs like that in your country. Here are some of my personal favorites:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mieEeD0Kfk (Brit Olam/ Matti Caspi)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bE5cHysMf5o (Hine Hine/Matti Caspi)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VV2rGPHvB8g (Lakahta et Yadi/ Yehudit Ravitz)

robotmay 5 years ago |

I'm an English folk musician and it's perhaps surprising to many people, considering the prevalence of English and our modern music, that we as a country have lost a huge amount of our songs and music over the years. We have however re-entered a folk revival since the 70s and it has combined with the national pastime of peculiar hobbiests having documented a lot of really obscure things.

But anyway, my partner sings one of our oldest documented songs, which I would classify as fairly unknown outside of historical circles and in an older form of English that is quite tricky to decipher: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr2LRpx4Uyk

I learn quite a few tunes and songs from various countries and it's interesting as to which I find immediately feel familiar to me. Scandinavian, French, Belgian, Breton, Quebecois stuff etc is very popular in folk circles here in the UK and I both listen and play a lot of it. Though a lot of us might struggle to sing along you might be surprised at how far some traditional songs travel :D

sgroppino 5 years ago | |

Quebecois stuff... this one is great https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyNYrmmdUd4 :)

robotmay 5 years ago | | |

Ooh thanks, haven't come across them before. I'm a big fan of Le Vent du Nord and Le Freres Brunet, but I really want to expand my album collection further. The one disappointing thing with the Quebecois folk scene is that they're so slow to digitise their albums and sell them on Bandcamp!

robotmay 5 years ago | |

These days I live in Wales and there's one band here I really quite like who sing in both Welsh and English: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xnLAg_O0NJA

angrais 5 years ago | |

Daft question: how do we know if the pronunciation is correct in the song your partner is singing? Given its in an older form of English and English is not well known for being spoken as you read it (like Latin).

robotmay 5 years ago | | |

Good question! I'm not super knowledgeable about it myself. I think anything from that far back is likely to be a reasonable amount of guesswork, but there are often some indicators as to how things are pronounced. A good one I've seen before is looking at rhymes; if it's likely that two words were intended to rhyme in a song/poem etc it can help indicate some pronunciation. I've seen this used for Shakespeare original pronunciation studies which is quite interesting.

From personal experience of trying to play old tunes (rather than songs), I definitely have to make my own interpretation of it based on my own experience. Sometimes you do come across some truly perplexing notation though, that really makes you wonder how it sounded originally. Some of the tunes in the Playford collection are super weird but as Playford was basically Top of the 17th Century Pops you have to assume it _did_ sound good however they used to play it :D

constantinum 5 years ago |

From across Indian subcontinent: In India, music and songs are predominately from movies as a source. So collected a few numbers that might be earworm or makes you tap your feet.

1. 1957 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69pPYkGiEAQ 2. 1975 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2HQGNuIY-Y 3. 1991 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyUe_BWqoOE (fourth most popular song in a poll conducted by the BBC World Service worldwide in 2002) 4. 1956 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtV2i4JWzJg 5. 1952 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwXL_xznCmc

galfarragem 5 years ago |

Very easy to listen, my favourite album in Brazilian Portuguese - Elis and Tom: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiKfu7sQXA8

Easy to listen - Amor Electro - Portuguese band: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwCyqvpJZwE

More difficult to listen - Ornatos Violeta - Portuguese band with brilliant but honest lyrics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRDr4ivis4o

Even more difficult to listen - Zeca Afonso - songs against former Portuguese dictatorship: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaLWqy4e7ls

lgl 5 years ago | |

Ornatos Violeta = instant upvote.

Here's a perfect live of another one of their songs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBN-ruyacSs

culopatin 5 years ago | |

I have a flight coming up next week and I’ve downloaded the first album in my Spotify. Thanks!

dorchadas 5 years ago |

I speak Irish (not my native language, though), and there's a bunch of them. Here's some of the more traditional, 'sean-nós' songs:

Amhrán Mhúinse - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=By0QM8mlr28 (English lyrics are in the description) - This is probably my favorite of all Irish sean-nós songs. It's super haunting, and made even sadder by the fact the woman who wrote the song didn't get her wish to be buried in her home area.

Coilín Phádraig Shéamuis - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOjSOAxN9Wg -- Typical song about immigration, quite melancholic.

Also, Iarla Ó Lionard does quite a lot of good work in the sean-nós tradition (he was heard on the film Brooklyn); here's one of my favorites by him - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35U1sOOjdDg

FInally, it's hard not to mention Seosamh Ó hÉanaí/Joe Heaney/Joe Éinniú, a native speaker from the Galway Gaeltacht - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrSL3YtzP_w

And, for some newer works in the language that I enjoy

An Cailín Álainn - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5l82gO7tuw

Pócaí Folamh is Cloigeann Tinn - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0L54BJFRnw

Siar go Conamara - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tywACdkAgc

All of these songs are sung by natives, which, sadly, is getting less and less common as the native speaking areas dwindle and as summer camps get millions of views translating the latest English language hit for summer school kids with awful pronunciation to sing.

culopatin 5 years ago |

Some of my favorites from the south of the planet:

The intro ends at 0:14 and I can never keep my feet still with this song: https://youtu.be/yf6kTjLVG2Y

A band with an incredible history. The singer is an Italian-Scottish born after his family escaped China. He attended the same school as Prince Charles but ran away one year before graduating. Somehow landed in the middle of the mountains in Argentina and started a reggae band that would morph into what’s in the link below. The most influential band of the underground music in Argentina in my opinion.

https://youtu.be/-hGUyebsf60

https://youtu.be/jlUXIfPt5tk

And a band with lyrics you wouldn’t understand even if you knew the language:

https://youtu.be/AG_0HlSSUdw

https://youtu.be/pntSoXv-cqU

aviditas 5 years ago |

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IKmPci5VXz0 Hasta la Raíz by Natalia Lafourcade

She's one of few artists that I can listen to her entire discography as a playlist and enjoy every single song.

I love finding new music in other languages so I appreciate this post.

pravenj 5 years ago |

Not only language barrier, many pieces of great music and dance, specially from oral cultures like mine, go unnoticed most of the time.

Few songs to listen for the added variety and by local singers from Nepal:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfsipZhqlOk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXyJuVPInH4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjD3ayZUTEM

From other parts of the World:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7lJ69mQe6o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NIIPUfmr_4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ql3wuNvSa6U

I have started making a Visual encyclopedia of unwritten and undocumented cultures of the world, currently focusing on Nepal. http://www.viewpedia.org

stzup7 5 years ago |

Oldies:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Z2FmAzArl4 (Baldorba / Benito Lertxundi)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IthTQD6XonM (Eperrak / Anje Duhalde)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRXmWm-sCzA (Xorieri mintzo zen / Erramun martikorena)

Modern:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8bc3kQF040 (Lau Teilatu / Itoiz)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwgPX3XUnsc (Ilargia / Ken zazpi)

5cents 5 years ago |

A few Nordic contributions:

Byssan lull: https://youtu.be/ogYC4LgqqnM A lullaby I think all Norwegian children have heard their beds, but it's actually Swedish

Til ungdommen: https://youtu.be/CieUTG8Z6Z0 The song became very beloved after 22.07.2011 and I think close to everyone here will get tears in their eyes when they hear it

Mitt hjerte alltid vanker: https://youtu.be/27JqZ8eEZlw Since it's Christmas soon. Very popular in Norway, although it's originally Danish

I guess it demonstrates the close historical relationship between the Nordic countries

lowkeynthorough 5 years ago | |

Hey could you help me track down this probably Norwegian folk like song? Most likely its a oneoff song by some band but many on that thread have been keft hanging for years...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAZcAhIAUto&t=0m36s

5cents 5 years ago | | |

Hi, sorry, I've really tried to track it down, but I don't recognise neither the melody nor the lyrics. I see that it is called "Draken flyger" by Henrik Wallgren in the end. He is Swedish I think, but the lyrics are probably written closer to Norse

dairylee 5 years ago | |

I wonder if Florence + the Machine took inspiration from Byssan lull for Jenny of Oldstones in Game of Thrones as the melody sounds almost identical.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTa1jHk1Lxc

msadowski 5 years ago |

I would go with “Dni których jeszcze nie znamy” by Marek Grechuta: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oG6pEolAKm8

abraxas 5 years ago | |

Somewhat better known Polish song from the same period might be Zegarmistrz Światła Purpurowy

https://youtu.be/A41PF4lUkrg

It was used as a score for a recent Polish game "This War of Mine"

phil3k 5 years ago |

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8T9eJDFwt3U Recent group from Austria (sung in dialectic Austrian-German)

ktothe 5 years ago | |

Was expecting Bilderbuch.

axaxs 5 years ago |

Great idea, I love finding music I'd typically have never heard about, foreign or other. I can't wait to go through this thread later.

Just to participate I'll share one I consider obscure, though it's not my language and I don't speak it(Gaelic), I find it calming.

https://youtu.be/r1CuSimHpTw

internetbird 5 years ago | |

Thanks for this recommandation. Realy liked it! I love Gaelic/Scotich music and instruments

boruto 5 years ago |

[Telugu]

Carnatic music:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l89ZaBqYiTA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxvZR3gF9uk

Movie songs:

https://youtu.be/VXKFDk1f4Ns

https://youtu.be/N-J2YjDtBGs

https://youtu.be/3RrA8OOxtkk

https://youtu.be/alm844msx6E

https://youtu.be/1Jh-fsP2Ya8

https://youtu.be/Ha1BQP3ACoc

agent008t 5 years ago |

Russian songs by Viktor Tsoi from the late 80s:

Spokoynaya Noch (Quiet Night): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOYkG5VMhp8

Peremen (Changes): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eg7BFXss1hE

Zakroi za mnoi dver, ya uhozhu (Close the door behind me, I am going away): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ind9EPBzh-Y

sgroppino 5 years ago |

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-X5LySoOiIA or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-6Li3CKflQ and the original one in (Brazilian) Portuguese https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RezuYwS0ngI

galfarragem 5 years ago | |

Old song that became so relevant and accurate recently, also from the brazilian Raul Seixas, "The day that the world stopped": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8zbYY41Vus

A bit of trivia: Paulo Coelho started his career composing songs to this guy.

sgroppino 5 years ago | | |

Indeed! The guy was a true Nostradamus!!

dustinhopkins 5 years ago |

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjnrtCKZqYg - a catchy tune from south india

newyankee 5 years ago |

Not my native language but this song is catchy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94AW2X8KH9Q

bobe__ 5 years ago |

Here is the most catchy Slovenian folk song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJcevebMrqU&ab_channel=Marti... (Golica is a mountain, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golica)

lurker137 5 years ago |

This one brings back memories: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCfFdUavHNw (Ethiopian singer Mahmoud Ahmed)

Teddy Afro is also one the greats. Here is an upbeat one with some historical cinematic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKrw9LIkAeU

playingchanges 5 years ago |

Not my native country but Tuareg Rock is my new favorite forgotten world genre.

A a great example -

‘Long Live The Sahrawi Army’ by El Wali

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_hoWwf1Sibg

Link to a good wiki on the genre -

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_blues

pyb 5 years ago |

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzlHucbD76U

zshaikhonline 5 years ago |

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jsFAIn-csU

Rivosa 5 years ago |

This is considered a classic in morocco:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dA_xG7rTxiA

Also this remake:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkjWq0Z5t3k

jet_32951 5 years ago |

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HaHI04Ydhrg is a song I learned as a child: "ganbate" (頑張って) has the sense of "don't quit now, look how far you've come" and it's been a talismanic thought.

ysfah 5 years ago |

In Malaysia, it has to be Getaran Jiwa by P. Ramlee.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6L1_empGNvg

austincheney 5 years ago |

I have noticed on YouTube a revival of traditional Mongolian music as modern rock/pop. As a dumb American that only speaks English I have no idea what the lyrics are but I really enjoy the music.

onecommentman 5 years ago |

Gortoz a Ran - Denez Prigent

Muzinge - Samite of Uganda

Makambo - Geoffrey Oryema

Koloman - Sona Dibate

The Moon Over Mtatsminda - version on Jan Garbarek album

Like potato chips, hard to stop once you start...

Again, native for someone

onecommentman 5 years ago |

Mimaamakim - Idan Raichel Project ממעמקים - עידן רייכל

Zajdi zajdi - Tose Proeski

Vökuró - Björk

Native to somebody...

marttt 5 years ago |

Estonian here.

* Worst song ever in the history of space (they were hoping to go to the Eurovision with this, and iirc almost succeeded; later they were actually invited to the Paris Fashion Week to perform this on stage):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dllo85ZSUk (Winny Puhh - Meiecundimees üks Korsakow läks eile Lätti / Korsakow, a guy from our area, went to Latvia yesterday)

* There is something very Estonian about this (not only the landscapes, it's actually a funny song, but very heart-warming):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVfPf006Vw0 (Orelipoiss - See alles jääb / Organ Boy - This Will Remain)

* A camp classic from the 1990s, sung and performed by a former chemistry teacher:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoZG75CTB7g (Onu Bella - Ma võtsin viina / Uncle Bella - I Drank Some Vodka)

* Something I discovered recently -- stunning conteporary folk. It's an old spell from Estonian folklore:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-Kpt0fFgME (Duo Ruut - Tuule sõnad / Words for Wind)

* Maybe the most popular contemporary folk group in Estonia these days:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BP3wAfIIhAo (Trad.Attack! - Kallimale / To My Dearest)

* An influential acapella group:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cjuTYZBWOI (Estonian Voices - Kättemaks / Revenge)

* Another widely loved singer is Mari Kalkun, mostly interpreting older songs in the Võru dialect:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AClRxNvbiZY (Mari Kalkun - Mõtsavele mäng / Forest Brother Game)

* Ah, and I'll also add Vennaskond, a punk (sort-of; hard to define actually) group that was strangely loved by everybody in the 1990s, inclunding those who generally hated rock music. This song is not typical for them, but I sometimes listen to this when I want to be sad:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oppqjn1voWo (Vennaskond - Depressiiv-maniakaalne psühhoos / Manic Depressive Psychosis)

falsecaca2 5 years ago |

hmm