[song] Rammstein - du hast

Good morning world!

There is only one song to start such a blog and I am talking of course of Rammstein's "Du hast". Rammstein is surely one of the most successful German bands in the world and "Du hast" seems to be well known. On the first sight Rammstein might sound like a rough and brutal band, where every song has only three different notes, but let me assure you, there is often more behind Rammstein lyrics.

So when it comes down to "Du hast" we have one big translation problem. "Du hast" means "you have", but in spoken language it sounds similar to "du hasst" which means "you hate". While listening to "du hast" it is not sure if they mean "you have" or "you hate" and it also depends on the line and verse.

"Du hast" is on the album "Sehnsucht" ("desire") which I'm holding right now in my hands. In the booklet are translations of every song and that is where the fun begins:
According to the booklet the English lyrics say: "you hate", but at the same time the German lyrics say "you have". The whole idea of the song dies when you write the German lyrics down, because in written language you definitely see the difference between "du hast" and "du hasst". Of course they were aware of that and I guess that is why they translated the English lyrics on purpose wrong.

video:

lyrics:

du

YOU

du hast 

YOU HAVE 

du hast mich

YOU HAVE ME

du 

YOU

du hast

YOU HAVE

du hast mich

YOU HAVE ME

du

YOU

du hast

YOU HAVE 

du hast mich

YOU HAVE ME

du

YOU

du hast 

YOU HAVE

du hast mich

YOU HAVE ME

du

YOU 

du hast

YOU HAVE

du hast mich

YOU HAVE ME

du hast mich

YOU HAVE ME

du hast mich gefragt

YOU HAVE ASKED ME

du hast mich gefragt

YOU HAVE ASKED ME

du hast mich gefragt

YOU HAVE ASKED ME

und ich hab nichts gesagt

AND I SAID NOTHING

willst du bis der Tod euch scheidet

DO YOU WANT TILL DEATH SEPARATES YOU 

treue sein für alle Tage
TO BE LOYAL FOR ALL DAYS

nein
NO
 nein
NO

willst du bis der Tod euch scheidet

DO YOU WANT TILL DEATH SEPARATES YOU

treue sein für alle Tage

TO BE LOYAL FOR ALL DAYS

nein

NO

nein

NO

du

YOU

du hast

YOU HAVE

du hast mich

YOU HAVE ME

du

YOU

du hast

YOU HAVE

du hast mich

YOU HAVE ME

du 

YOU

du hast

YOU HAVE

du hast mich

YOU HAVE ME

du hast mich

YOU HAVE ME

du hast mich gefragt

YOU HAVE ASKED ME

du hast mich gefragt

YOU HAVE ASKED ME

du hast mich gefragt

YOU HAVE ASKED ME

und ich hab nichts gesagt

AND I SAID NOTHING

willst du bis der Tod euch scheidet

DO YOU WANT TILL DEATH SEPARATES YOU

treue sein für alle Tage

TO BE LOYAL FOR ALL DAYS

nein

NO

nein

NO

willst du bis zum Tod der Scheide

DO YOU WANT  TILL THE DIVIDE OF DEATH

sie lieben auch in schlechten Tagen

TO LOVE HER ALSO IN BAD DAYS

nein

NO

nein

NO

willst du bis der Tod euch scheidet

DO YOU WANT TILL DEATH SEPARATES YOU

treue sein

TO BE LOYAL

nein

NO

nein

NO

Additional stuff:
I tried to stick to the german words as close as possible. If you listen to it in German, you would probably understand it like this: "you, you have/hate, you hate me, you have asked me". Especially in the second and third line "hate" would make totally sense in German.

willst du bis zum Tod der Scheide

DO YOU WANT  TILL THE DIVIDE OF DEATH

I translated "Scheide" in this context as "divide". But this is also a provoking pun because "Scheide" normally means "vagina" (or scabbard). So technically you could also translate this line as "DO YOU WANT TILL THE DEATH OF THE VAGINA...". Yep. That's Rammstein. Very subtle. Like a wooden hammer. So... if you use Rammstein to teach German, and god knows, there is no better way to teach German, make sure your students are sexually educated. Maybe Rammstein isn't the most sensitive teacher on that topic. Many of their lyrics are really intelligent, but they also do have those wooden hammer provoking songs. 

So this was my translation where I tried to stick to the German words as close as possible: Let's see how the translation was done in the official CD-inlay. In my opinion that is a pretty free translation, but you now know the original. 

Du hast
you hate (so they already translated the title wrong...)

you

you hate

you hate me

you 

you hate

you hate me

you hate me to say

you hate me to say

you hate me to say

and I did not obey

will you until death does sever 

be upright to her forever

never

will you 'til death be her rider

her lover too, to stay inside her

never

So, from my part there is nothing more to say, see ya next time!

___
Feel free to put complains, other opinions, wishes, questions, whatevers in the comments.
You may also correct my English. I really don't feel that comfortable blogging in English. But if you correct me, please do it in a nice way, otherwise it might hurt my feelings.
And if you do speak German: feel free to check my German blog on song lyrics:
http://jenseitsderlyrik.blogspot.co.at/

The introduction of Beyond German Lyrics

Hello Internets...

While my other amazing blog is rushing towards the 5000 views jubilee, I decided to start a new one. This time in English and definitely not because of my awesome English skills. My other blog in German is about German song lyrics which I (try to) analyze and interpret. The topic here will be  similar to the other blog but here I am going to translate the German lyrics to English as good as I can.

"So why are you doing this? You fool of a Took, there are thousands of lyric pages, some of them already even have English translations of all our favorite Rammstein songs?"

Indeed my random-unfriendly-internet-stranger-example, there are already thousands of lyric translations. But I don't agree with some of the translations I have seen and it is not just about the translation, but also about giving background information. For example puns, which won't work after the translation or historical or political meanings, etc.. In my opinion there is often more to say than only translating some lines from one language into the other.
Another point is to review good German and Austrian movies. The idea behind the whole blog is to give interesting examples and insight into our pop-culture for everyone who is interested in it.
Beware: The goal of this blog is NOT to glorify our culture (if you are willing to use such controversial terms), just to offer background information for people who are actually interested in German language, German music and German movies.
Connecting different language areas will be one of my goals and duties after finishing my academic studies and due to my own experience pop-culture is a great way to dive into a foreign culture. (Did I mention, that I really feel uncomfortable when using this term?)
Another topic of my interests are stereotypes about (German) language. I already wrote a paper on that and I am also planning to stick to this topic, maybe for my bachelor papers, so I guess there will be also stuff around German stereotypes.

Two more things...
1. today is some kind of a holiday, because Eis, former Geist, one of the (in my opinion) greatest German bands released their new album "Wetterkreuz". It might be hard stuff for beginners (and I don't mean German beginners but metal, especially atmospheric black metal beginners) that is why I am not starting with one of their songs. But you can bet that there are going to be some Eis translations around here. Anyway, I thought it was a good, memorable day to start this new blog.

2. Look at the following picture. Same thing happened to me. The only difference... I wasn't angry but my heart stopped and flipped and started dancing and I was like "finally a student knowing Rammstein! This is amazing!". So this was another key moment leading to this blog. If you have song suggestions or wishes or whatever... feel free to comment.