In Korean, my lyrics are witty and have twists. But translated into English, it doesn't come over. I've tried writing in English, just for me, but it doesn't work. I've got to know everything about a culture, and I don't.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I've read all of Sarah Waters's novels which have been translated into Korean.
I feel sometimes that I'm in a constant state of being lost in translation, and I guess that why I write songs.
I've written more songs for this record than I ever have in the past so I'm trying to give it a lot of special attention to be sure my ideas really get translated right.
With music, you often don't have to translate it. It just affects you, and you don't know why.
I have an all-Japanese design team, and none of them speak English. So it's often funny and surprising how my ideas end up lost in translation.
I think when you translate songs, you lose the real essence and the meaning.
A lot of time, I'd spell things in standard English instead of phonetically because I want people to understand what's going on. It's also very lyrical, and the great thing about lyrical prose is even when you're not totally sure of the words, you can be swayed by the musicality of it.
There must of course be a relationship between translating and making poems of your own, but what it is I just don't know.
I kind of always struggled writing in Malay, because Malay is such a beautiful language. And it gets really hard, you know, if you want to make it into a song. You have to make it sound beautiful, use the right words.
The thing is, in English I'm able to write the lyrics as I'm making the song, once I'm done with the melody.