Insight: What’s that mean?

By Ed Pierce
Managing Editor

Growing up in the late 1950s and early 1960s was a special time to listen to the radio, as it was the Golden Age of Rock n’ Roll, and some of the songs I learned all the words by heart.

South Korean singer Psy had a huge hit in 
America in 2012 with 'Gangham Style,' a song
in Korean about a trendy suburb of Seoul.
COURTESY PHOTO 

But since I didn’t speak a foreign language, there were a few songs that I had no idea what they were about.

For example, my father would always turn up the volume on his car radio whenever the 1958 tune “Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu” would be playing. Sung entirely in Italian by a singer named Domenico Modugno, it was commonly known for the refrain “Volare.” I later learned that “Volare” means to fly in Italian and it’s a song about flying through a blue sky feeling free and happy.

A few years later in 1963, Kyu Sakamoto, a Japanese singer, topped the Billboard Popular Music chart with his song in Japanese called “Sukiyaki.” For years I never knew what that song was about, but I enjoyed listening to it, even though I did not understand one word of it. When the song was later used in the television show “Mad Men,” I decided after 50 years of hearing it to google the lyrics and discovered that in Japanese, the song describes the singer walking and looking up to the sky to stop his tears from falling while remembering a lost love.

In 1964, Belgian singer Jeannine Deckers, nicknamed “The Singing Nun,” reached Number One on the music charts worldwide with a song in French she called “Dominque.” Like with “Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blue” and “Sukiyaki,” I had no clue about what “Dominique” was about, but it was a catchy song. It’s a simple tune about a Spanish Catholic priest named Saint Dominic, who founded the Dominican Order of nuns to which Deckers belonged.

These days it’s common to turn on the radio and hear a song in a foreign language and not know what the song is about. There is Bad Bunny, a prolific Puerto Rican singer whose songs are sung in Spanish. His music has been so popular that the National Football League had Bad Bunny as its featured performer during its Super Bowl halftime show earlier this year.

And there’s no denying that the influence of K-Pop and bands from South Korea singing in Korean have received major airplay in America for the past decade.

The first South Korean singer to have a significant hit in America was Psy, whose “Gangham Style” song with Korean lyrics was the second highest charting song on Billboard Popular Music charts in 2012. It seemed for a while that Psy and that song invaded popular culture. It aired everywhere from the local dance club to a live performance on NBC’s “Today” show.

For those who don’t know, the “Gangham Style” song refers to a lifestyle associated with the Gangham region of Seoul in South Korea, a supposed trendy, hip, and classy area populated by wealthy, status-seeking residents.

Through the years and across the decades, there have been many foreign language songs that became hits and yet most listeners have little idea what they mean.

In the 1980s, a song in German called “99 Luftballons" by the band Nena was a smash hit in Europe before its video aired on MTV. A direct translation in German of the title is sometimes given as "Ninety-Nine Air Balloons." It’s an anti-war song known in English as "Ninety-Nine Red Balloons" and tells a story about how balloons are mistaken for UFOs, resulting in a near-century cataclysmic war with no winner.

Anyone who has attended a wedding in the past 30 years undoubtedly has heard the song “Macarena” sung in Spanish by Los Del Rio, a duo from Andalusia, Spain. The song lingered on American music charts for weeks and eventually hit Number One in 1996. It also spawned a dance craze leading to its continuing popularity at wedding receptions.

The Los del Rio singers say the “Macarena” dance started when audience members improvised arm movements displayed by the singers during an instrumental part of the song at concerts. The dance eventually blew up and overshadowed the song’s popularity but the two are forever linked and inseparable. 

Other popular songs that many Americans took to heart without knowing what the lyrics meant in a foreign language have become cherished tunes, such as Jose Feliciano’s 1970 “Feliz Navidad” sung in Spanish. It means "Happy Christmas" and is a traditional holiday greeting in Spanish used to wish someone a merry Christmas season.

Another smash hit was The Sandpipers’ 1966 song “Guantanamera." The song is sung in Spanish and is about a woman from Guantánamo. It’s adapted from a traditional Cuban patriotic song by Cuban poet José Marti and relates an expression of love for Cuba and of solidarity with the poor people around the world.

1958’s “La Bamba” by Ritchie Valens, sung entirely in Spanish, was among the first rock n’ roll hits. A Mexican folk song, “La Bamba” is about a man who tells his fiancée, "I'm not a sailor, I'm a captain," about his ambitions in life.

If music is indeed a universal language, these songs show that great tunes have no barriers. <