Music is an art form. So is the translation. St. Vincent learned this when she found herself analyzing every single word of her latest album All Born Screaming to produce a Spanish language version.
Annie Clark grew up in Texas, studied languages, knows the basics of Spanish. Since he began touring the world he has felt a particular affinity with the language and culture of Spain and Latin America. Hearing fans from those countries sing his songs in English, he decided to pay homage to them by deepening his knowledge of their language and redoing All Born Screaming.
The result is Everything was born shoutingwhich will be released on November 15 and was anticipated by Hombre Roto (that is to say Broken Man). Redoing all ten songs on the album wasn't easy, Clark explains. This is the case, for example, of Reckless. «The translation of the word reckless (reckless, reckless, reckless, ed) didn't sound good in Spanish, so we preferred to use the word save which means wild. And so the meaning of the piece changed drastically.”
To find the right words, Clark enlisted the help of her friend and filmmaker Alan Del Rio Ortiz. And by the end of the process she found herself having a greater understanding of her own music.
First of all, why did you want to rerecord All Born Screaming in Spanish?
Some of the best concerts of my life have been in Spanish-speaking countries, and there people sing my songs in flawless English, even though it's probably their second or third language. This thing gets me every time. And so I wanted to somehow come to meet them. And then honestly there was another motivation: I wanted to improve my Spanish, a language I've always liked.
Was it a good challenge?
A challenge, yes, but also an interesting and educational process. I rethought the whole album and then I started working on the vocal production again. There are so many vocal parts, and I recorded them all myself, that halfway through the process I wondered who made me do it. Like: what trouble did I get myself into? But I was halfway done, it was too late to turn back.
Can you tell me more about your relationship with fans in Spanish-speaking countries?
In Mexico and Latin America in general people love music and they openly show it to you. Once while crowdsurfing in Mexico I had to fight to keep my shoes from being taken off. Not that they wanted to steal them from me, they wanted a piece of it, something almost religious, they wanted a piece of my body or something like that. I fought to keep my shoes on, for no other reason, but they were the only pair I had that were suitable for going on stage. In Brazil in concert in front of a thousand people I could barely hear my voice as everyone sang every single word of the songs. I had to stop, I felt like crying. For those people who live on the other side of the world, English is probably their third language, yet they know all the words and that's because music is life. And something similar happened to me in Colombia and Argentina. Incredible. And so this record is kind of a gift to those fans.
Do you speak fluently?
I'm improving. (He pauses) I would say I'm at an eighth grade level.
It's not bad.
I don't know, I'm still confused with verb tenses. I don't know how to construct certain sentences in the future or past tense. I think I express myself like a robot who can only talk about things that happen in the present.
And then there is the subjunctive…
Well yes. And verbs like “me encanta”. But I'm getting better. Two of my sisters speak it fluently, so I'm confident.
Did the translation work allow you to understand more than English?
It made me appreciate even more those who have to learn English, because it is a senseless language. How many words for just one thing. And zero rules, because it's a bastard language. All languages are, but English is one of the craziest because of all the influences it has had and its history.
For example at the end of Hell Is Near I sing “You give it all away / You give it all away because the whole world's watching you”, but in Spanish that would have been too many syllables, so I just kept “Regalalo todo, Regalo todo por el mundo entero”. By doing so, the meaning has changed, there is less cynicism in the text, there is generosity, there is no longer anything threatening. Expressing myself in English I would never have arrived at this new meaning. And therefore on many occasions I gave priority to the sound and emotions that I was able to arouse.
When you sing in Spanish do you hear the words differently?
When I use English I have some more problems because I know the language perfectly. Something similar happens when a song I listen to may sound great, but there is a passage of lyrics that is cloying and ruins it for me. And then it's the end of the suspension of disbelief, I just can't do it. However, when I listen to pieces sung in Spanish or Portuguese, if they sound good, I don't pay too much attention to the words, I don't think “ah, how well-known this passage is”. And so Spanish is a kind of escape route to joy, whereas with English I always keep my guard up.
You said that for All Born Screaming you recorded literally hundreds of vocal tracks. You then did the same for Everyone was born shouting?
(He laughs) If I did hundreds of takes it's because I sent them to Alan asking him if the pronunciation was okay. It was liberating because unlike English I wasn't so caught up in the meaning. Once I got the pronunciation right, I didn't have the same kind of emotional block singing because… I don't know.
Maybe because you had already experienced those emotions while recording the original.
Right. It was easier to deal with emotions after doing it with the English version, that makes sense.
How did you work with Alan on the translations?
We started with a literal translation. I tried to understand if and how it was singable, he tried to understand if there were more natural ways of saying things. He is from Monterrey and therefore from the accent to the use of certain terms we went towards Mexican. In So Many PlanetsMeaning what So many planetsI sing “Hemorrhaging heartthrob with a six-pack of beer” which couldn't work and so it became “Rompe corazones con unas cervezas”, more or less “heartthrob with a beer”. Fewer words are used in Spanish. “Alcemos lana de su trauma”, which means “we will make money with her trauma”, in the English version it is “We'll make a killing from her trauma, oh, mama”. And by the way I think wool It's Mexican slang. In short, it's different.
Will you sing these pieces in Madrid and Barcelona in October?
Yes, but I won't do all the songs on the album in Spanish, also because it won't be out yet and people won't know them. I'm not so worried about myself as I am about the musicians who have to learn to sing backing vocals in Spanish. Luckily in Hombre Roto the choirs are just “ah”, no translation needed.
Are you ready to launch the record out into the world?
Some people will like it, some people will laugh at me, and that's okay. But I'm not trying to sound like a native speaker, it's clear that I'm not. I said to myself: if it comes out as good as Nena and 99 Luftballons then it's ok. If we are at that level, everything is fine.
From Rolling Stone US.
