Amy Guskin wrote:
>>> On Thu, 27 Mar 2008 23:39:03 -0400, John W. Kennedy wrote
> (in article ):
> 
>> Jon Schild wrote:
>>> Richard Tibbetts wrote:
>>>> Back in the days of the Soviet Union, the Soviet Red Army had an
>>>> official choir composed of male soldiers and musicians. It still
>>>> exists. The Red Army Choir performs throughout Russia to this day.
>>>>
>>>> Now consider the Finnish rock band called The Leningrad Cowboys. A
>>>> little while ago, they held a concert in Russia, in which - to the
>>>> screaming applause of Russkie teenagers - they got the Red
Army Choir
>>>> to join them on stage for a performance of "Sweet
Home Alabama." In
>>>> English. You couldn't make this up.
>>>>
>>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UuFJoexdlU
>>> In several foreign-language movies I have seen, there is live music in 
>>> English in one or more scenes. When I noticed this in a Dutch movie, I 
>>> asked someone I know who grew up in Amsterdam why that would happen. He 
>>> said that a lot of music is performed in English if it was written that 
>>> way because that is how people are used to hearing it.
>>>
>>> (Besides, I can't imagine the difficulty of translating Sweet Home 
>>> Alabama into Russian decently. I know that translations of operas are 
>>> often extremely bad.)
>> Abba performed in English only, even though all four members were Swedish.
>>
>> Moreover, except for Peter Noone, nearly every British or Commonwealth 
>> pop singer since Cliff Richards has sung in an imitation American 
>> accent, and many of them have written lyrics in American English,
too.  <<
> 
> Yep, this is one of the reasons why punk was so shocking -- they were singing 
> in our language, but we could barely understand them (or their slang)!
> 
>>> (I am fascinated by the fact that Andrea Corr's solo album,
"Ten Feet 
>> High", not for sale in the US, employs a number of British and Irish 
>> idioms ["amn't", "one year on",
"chariot" in the sense of "horse 
>> carriage"], something the Corrs as a group avoided in their
original songs.) 
> <<
> 
> Neat, now I'll have to poke around and find that.

You can order the Japanese pressing, "Ten fi-to hai" by
"Andorea Coa" 
(that's what it says in Katakana on the spine) from Amazon. It includes 
a unique bonus track, and it has all the English-language material, plus 
an extra Japanese lyric booklet. I find it surprisingly suggestive of 
Suzanne Vega (more interestingly, so does my wife, who was briefly SV's 
roommate). And "An Ideal World" is one of the most heartbreakingly 
beautiful, sad songs I've ever heard.

-- 
John W. Kennedy
"The first effect of not believing in God is to believe in anything...."
   -- Emile Cammaerts, "The Laughing Prophet"
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