Sunday, August 16, 2015

Two languages, one artist and two decades

Since I don't have time to write too involved an entry, I will do a short one, based on the little things I found out today. It's about NENA, the German singer. If you don't know who that is, click at the Wikilink given at the end of the article. Since the aim of the blog is more about the songs, I'll skip her details.

 All you need to know that Nena is a German singer who had her first international success in the early 1980's. One of the wonderful songs (at least a one that I like so much) is the one called "99 Luftballons". The song is perfectly ordinary, but starts with a wonderful romantic opening line:

 "Hast du etwas Zeit fuer mich,
   Singe ich ein Lied fuer dich,
   Von 99 Luftballon auf ihrem Weg zum Horizont
   Denkst Du vielliecht gerade an mich
   Singe ich ein Lied fuer dich,
   Von 99 Luftballoons ... "

 A terribly romantic set of lines, in my opinion. How many people take time to sing you songs of Hot-Air Balloons? And then, she did it again: she wrote (well, she was in a band at that time), and sang the English version of the song, which incidentally doesn't translate word for word. This perhaps reflects what original composers do when they are faced to translate a version of their song. The sounds and the tone of the English song is similar to the German one, which you can listen here.

 The next decade(s) were not particularly successful for Lena, apart from the Berlin concert, where she performed a song, the title of which means "Miracles can happen". A miracle did happen: this song performed for the "Konzert fuer Berlin", resulted in the German re-unification a few months later.

 Now, she has had a comeback, with a more mature stance. She made accolades for herself by resinging her old songs, which resulted in a major hit, but also coming up with new songs and albums which are a big hit in the German speaking countries of Austria and Switzerland, besides Germany. You can listen to one of the recent song here, where she has partnered with another British singer Kim Wilde. This is an interesting song to watch since the old version (of 1984) is also available and you can see it here.

 It is quite interesting the change that the artist has had, not only in her looks, but also in her style, way of looking, and singing. She exudes much more maturity and elegance, as does Kim Wilde. All the videos were a pleasure to watch, and listen to. Another of my favourites is here, and I think this belongs to the new songs that she wrote recently, titled as "Besser gehts nicht".

 Actually, I fully came to know about Nena only today. I did find her accidentally while searching for Lena, another german singer, who won the Eurovision award recently. Of course, I would confuse the L and the N, an alphabet apart, and keep getting different songs. 

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