#the vibes aren't Exactly as they should but this song means and conveys a lot to me so this is as close as i could get

[chamaleonsoul]

Wildflower, fingertips on me

I can feel them still

[greatwyrmgold]

I have strong opinions about translating songs, derived in large part from listening to a lot of anime song covers. And I've been thinking about this because of "Useless Angel," the recent official English version of "DadadadaTenshi".

For comparison, here's the original Japanese. English subtitles are available.

Now, if you compare the official English lyrics to the translation of the Japanese lyrics, you'll notice a few things. The first is that the English grammar and pronunciation are...not exactly how a native speaker would say any of that. (It's not as bad as "Your Affection," you can definitely tell it's supposed to be English, but...writing the lyrics on screen is appreciated.)

Once you get around that, you'll notice that the lyrics are very different. For instance, the tenshi overcomes her uselessness with angelic power, while the angel uses her angel powers to overcome her flaws. Similar vibes, but the literal meanings are pretty different.

But if you were listening to the Japanese lyrics, you'll notice that the English lyrics sound very similar. "Dame [×4] na atashi wo; aishitene!" doesn't mean quite the same thing as "Darn it [×4] not a perfect girl; 'I love you' back!", but it has the same meter, same stressed syllables, and similar phonemes. "Useless Angel" doesn't always sound like it was written in English, but it does always sound like it was written with the melody in mind.

Most Anglophone anime song cover artists (or whoever they get their translations from) don't do this. They get a literal translation from some source or another, then find some way to contort that translation into the song's length, and that's it. Sometimes they don't even bother swapping synonyms around to make the syllable count match; they just get close enough and give some words extra notes or vise versa.

And that sounds like shit!

Lyrics aren't just a sideshow playing alongside the melody; they are the medium through which we hear the melody. Having lyrics that sound wrong—whether because of mismatched syllable count, mismatched syllable stress, or just trying to force words to blend together when they don't—is like playing an instrumental piece with out-of-tune instruments. Sometimes not even the right instruments—like, they didn't have a drummer, so the spare bassist just strummed their bass when the drummer should have hit a drum, and argh string instruments are terrible at percussion why are you doing this?

Song lyrics are not prose, they're poetry. They're art. Much like how anime subtitles should convey the essence of what the dialogue means over a literal translation of the words in the script, and much like how anime dubs need to follow the lip flaps even if that makes them deviate farther from the original Japanese, song lyrics need to be translated in a way that follows the song, that conveys the essence of how the song is supposed to feel.

Anyways, I can't stand most English anime covers, especially covers of songs I like. By contrast, I've been listening to "Useless Angel" on loop for days, interrupted mostly by "Dadadada Tenshi". Half of its lyrics are mumbled word salad, but none of them sound wrong.