Translated Cover Version: Difference between revisions

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A subtrope of [[Cover Version]], or occasionally [[Covered Up]] for songs which are translated into a different language.

* After The Fire's "Der Kommissar" is an English cover of a German song originally done by Falco. The title is the only part that wasn't translated.

* [[Christina Aguilera]], Nelly Furtado and [[Shakira]] have all recorded several of their singles both in English and in Spanish (and in Shakira's case, Portuguese).

* [[The Beatles]] did a German cover of "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" called "Komm, gib mir deine Hand," and "She Loves You" as "Sie liebt dich."

* The [[David Bowie]] song [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHT8Kb9VjAQ Heroes] has been done in three languages, the original English, in German as [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXV3rlr9G04 Helden] and in French as [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=van4ZFqTM3k Heros].

* "Gloria" by Laura Branigan was originally an Italian song by Umberto Tozzi. Branigan's version isn't a straight cover, though; her Gloria is a lonely, promiscuous loser and the lyrics are sarcastic and contemptuous, while Tozzi's original gushes almost worshipfully about a woman who is waaaaay out of his league.

* Stef Carse, a now-forgotten French-Canadian country singer, had a one-hit wonder in the early 1990s with a French rendition of "Achy Breaky Heart" called "Achy Breaky Dance", dance moves included.

* Petula Clark translated many of her English-language songs into French, Spanish and Italian. "Downtown" is the best known of those.

** On a related note, "I Will Follow Him" is an English cover of Petula Clark's French-language song "Chariot".

* [[Phil Collins]] translated and sang his own songs in French.

* Every [[Disney Animated Canon|Disney]] song is translated into around 20 languages each, and some languages have more than one translation, to accomodate local variation.

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* Nena's "99 Red Balloons" is an English-language cover of her own German-language song "99 Luftballoons". The English release 45 had the German version as the [[B-Side]].

** Oddly, Goldfinger's cover, while the rest of the song is in English, uses the German fourth verse, which was translated into the English third verse, so one verse ends up being [[Second Verse Curse|completely left out]]. The fourth verse contains a line about jet pilots comparing themselves to Captain Kirk, so it could have been left out for copyright reasons.

* Argentinean bands Renacer and Tren Loco, who have covered several English-language songs in Spanish, such as ''[[Judas Priest|Metal Gods]]'', ''[[Megadeth|Reckoning Day]]'' and ''[[Helloween|March of Time]]'' in the case of the former, and ''[[Judas Priest|The Hellion/Electric Eye]]'' and ''[[Megadeth|Train of Consequences]]'' in the case of the latter.

* "Solo Le Pido a Dios" by Argentinean singer Leon Gieco has been translated by several other artists and groups into different languages, as well.

* [[The Police]] did a cover version of "De Do Do Do De Da Da Da" in [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCbCA5z1Ygs Japanese].

** There's also a [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uPZY-F_zac Spanish] version.

* "Ue wo muite arukou" ("Sukiyaki") by [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtXQ31F1A-k Kyu Sakamoto] (1963) was covered in translation by [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqFkUNqBwMw A Taste of Honey] (1981).

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* For [[The Pixies]] cover of "Evil Hearted You", originally by Graham Gouldman but [[Covered Up]] by [[The Yardbirds]], Black Francis translated the lyrics into Spanish. Slightly less clumsy than his regular Spanish, too.

* Avril Lavigne covered her song "Girlfriend" with the chorus translated to several other languages.

* Cantonese anime dubs will occasionally come with a dubbed version of the opening theme. Examples include ''[[Doraemon]]'', ''[[Ranma ½]]'', ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]'' and ''[[Saiunkoku Monogatari]]''.

** In some cases, like their treatment of ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]'''s ''Melissa'', it's more like they [[Cover Changes the Meaning|rewrote the lyrics]].

* German singer Juliane Werding has done a number of translated covers, including [[The Band]]'s ''The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down'' (''Am Tag, als Conny Kramer starb''), [[Mike Oldfield]]'s ''Moonlight Shadow'' (''Nacht voll Schatten''), and [[Nik Kershaw]]'s ''Wouldn’t It Be Good'' (''Sonne auf der Haut'')

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* "Sugar Baby Love" by The Rubettes has a Japanese cover version by Yoko Ishida, which was used as the opening song for ''[[A Little Snow Fairy Sugar]]''.

* Spanish band Los Bravos wrote at least one song in English, "Black Is Black", which became a [[One-Hit Wonder|big hit]] in the English-speaking world, it was also a top seller in French when Johnny Halliday covered it as "Noir C'est Noir".

* The theme tune to ''[[Plants vs. Zombies]]'' has three versions, the original English, a Japanese version both done by Laura Shigihara and a Spanish version.

* [[Hong Kong]] singer Faye Wong did a Cantonese version of [[Tori Amos]]' "Silent All These Years".

* Ben E. King's R&B classic "Stand By Me" was rewritten by Italian singer Adriano Celentano as "Pregherò" (I Will Pray), a love ballad that borders on [[Christian Rock]] to the point that Celentano performed it in 1995 at a command performance for Pope John Paul II's 75th birthday.

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* [[Susan Boyle]]'s "Wings to Fly" is an English cover of "Tsubasa wo Kudasai," originally performed by Japanese pop band Akaitori in the '70s, and also [[Covered Up|featured in several anime]] such as [[Rebuild of Evangelion]] and [[K-On!]]

* Beatallica, a band whose gimmick is doing [[The Beatles|Beatles]] songs [[In the Style Of]] [[Metallica]], have an entire album's worth of translated versions of their "All You Need Is Love" parody "All You Need Is Blood". They essentially got international fans of the band to translate the lyrics into their language and also had them write them out phonetically so the singer could better pronounce them.

* [[Bjork]]'s [[Old Shame]] debut included Icelandic covers of [[Stevie Wonder]]'s "Your Kiss Is Sweet" and [[The Beatles]]' "The Fool On The Hill".

* [[Peter Gabriel]] re-recorded the vocals of his third self-titled album and ''Security'' in German, calling the results ''Ein Deutsches Album'' and ''Deutsches Album''.

* Similarly, the entirety of [[Van Halen|David Lee Roth]]'s ''Eat 'Em And Smile'' was translated into Spanish with re-recorded vocals by Roth himself as ''Sonrisa Salvaje'' (which actually means "Wild Smile").

* "Jai Ho", a Hindi song by A.R. Rahman, featured in the film ''[[Slumdog Millionaire]]'', was covered in English by the [[Pussycat Dolls]].

* Kate Ryan recorded "Scream for More" in both English and French.

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* Peter Schilling's sole hit, "Major Tom" (Coming Home), was [[Covered Up|originally recorded]] in German as "Major Tom (Vollig Losgelost)".

* [[Covenant]]'s "Der Leiermann" uses the tune of "Like Tears in Rain" with the lyrics of a German art song.

* ''[[Toy Story]]'' 3 ends with a Spanish-language version of Randy Newman's "You've Got a Friend in Me", performed by the Gipsy Kings.

* ''[[Toy Story (franchise)|Toy Story]]'' 3 ends with a Spanish-language version of Randy Newman's "You've Got a Friend in Me", performed by the Gipsy Kings.

* Basshunter's "Boten Anna", in addition to the English bastardization "Now You're Gone", was covered by himself in German, and by Gebroeders Ko in Dutch, with the lyrics parodized to be about a ''boat'' named Anna.

* Lucas Prata, with the help of former O-Zone member Dan Balan, recorded an English version of "Dragostea din Tei"([[Memetic Mutation|aka "Numa Numa"]]) titled "The Ma Ya Hi Song", which in turn was gender-flipped by Alina as "When you Leave (Numa Numa)". Balan also recorded an [[Ascended Meme]] version titled "Sugartunes (Numa Numa)".

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[[Category:Music Tropes]]

[[Category:~~Translated Cover Version~~]]

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