Sometimes view source is helpful but most times it's not.
Keywords show only three people trying to see "cocaine" in the song.
When Seal is asked what his song means he doesn't answer.
Because if he did answer then he'd have to talk about drugs. And better for the song to be mystery.
So we're left to our own devices. We know he had a drug problem so that figures heavily.
It still happens.
"Why are those people going into the bathroom together?"
"To snort cocaine."
"Oh man. People still do that?"
"Yep. Obviously."
That is so 1980's.
Man oh man, sometimes these anachronisms sure can be stuck in time anachronistically.
It makes you not even want to talk to them.
I'll just stay away. Have your own separate party. If you need cocaine to make your little private party within a larger party interesting then it's you who are the uninteresting people.
"Why did he even invite those people?"
"I don't know."
"Whose friends are they?"
"I don't know."
Because of all the places in the house to slip away and do cocaine out of sight of everyone else, a bathroom on each floor of a three-story townhouse, a lavish marble bathroom on the second floor attached to a bedroom, empty rooms throughout the two upper floors, plus a basement, plus a back yard, and a garage, they pick the bathroom in the hallway from the front door where everyone in the open plan first floor can see them go into the tiny room together. All crammed in there packing thier noses. That's totally indiscreet.
It's a very nice bathroom. You should see it. Dark purple wall paper with gold vertical lines, white fixtures. Classy. Then that no-class having group fouls it up with their no-class party drugs.
GAWL!
That would be Seal.
That's what Seal would have done with his girlfriend.
Forget about these people who foul perfectly nice and interesting parties.
Oh God. I just now realized the guy I was talking to died. John. I didn't know he had broken both arms before he died. I thought he was just being quiet.
When I said that to his wife she scowled at me. For not being more assertively communicative I think.
"As I was being quiet."
Her scowl relaxed and I felt vast relief she forgave me for not being more assertively communicative.
After all, she didn't contact me either.
Enough of that party. A lovey evening apart from those two unhappy things.
Seal is singing about cocaine. Clearly. Here is the post that suddenly gets renewed interest. Quite a lot of people feel strongly the song is understood best straightforwardly at surface reading with no suggestions to drugs. And if you see that in the song then there is something wrong with you.
Fine. There is something wrong with me.
I encountered too many people like Seal.
But without the singing chops.
I see only two renditions of this song into ASL and that's strange because it's perfect for that sort of thing.
I do better than these two girls do.
Because I show the song as if I were singing it. My signs are emphasized as Seal emphasizes his words and my signs land spot on with the lyrics.
There are a million ways to show "gray" in sign language, possibly six ways. (grey in British-talk)
Here, lookit, six at once.
The main way to say "gray." That also means "anyway."
The more precise way to say the color "gray."
Of course, in the song the term "grey" means a mood. An unhappy fog-like purgatory mental state between happiness and the bleak blackness of sunken depression where drug users reside.
Pick a way to say "gray" and stick with it throughout the song.
I use the "anyway" form.
Because of the line "A light hits the gloom on the gray."
"Gloom" or "sadness" is a sign that leads directly into the "anyway" form of "gray."
Those to signs go together very well, so I use that form of "gray" throughout.
Even for the line "a graying tower alone by the sea." Obviously meaning "aging tower" but Seal wrote the color gray because he's creating a bleak mental scene.
Both interpreters in the video use their own form that I wouldn't recognize as signaling the color "gray" or signaling "semi-depression."
They both say "Baby" the way I say "cute." There is another definite sign for this English word, "Baby."
Because they both use these same two odd signs it makes me think one has copied the other.
In fact, they both do the entire song the same way. And that never happens in real life. Interpreters just don't make the same choices through an entire piece, especially one so heavy with symbolism.
Wait. There are two more. I forgot about those. Four total. Let's see if they're better.
YouTube [kissed from a rose, asl]
1) Ugh. The mechanical "music, music, music, music, music" for the musical introduction instead of pantomiming the music. It conveys exactly nothing at all except "something you cannot hear."
Forget it. She's not feeling it. She's barely keeping up. This is a rank beginner.
2) Oh, it's a dude. I thought he was an ugly girl. He's making monkey-faces and talking about turmoil. He has itchy arms. His friends asked him to do this. So he's all, "Alright. First time. His pleasure."
Okay, I give up.
He does the song differently from the rest, but so slowly, so behind the meter that it's like he's a bit stoned himself.
All four renditions are poor, sloppy, slow, imprecise, and nothing at all like the song. Nothing. There is no connection between the shoddy translations and the impressively attractive song.
Wanna see 'em? They belong in a crap-translation museum.
What's with the toothless faces, Baby? Is this how you communicate, with nondescript animal grunts?
All four of these videos fail.
"F" for all of you.
One of these days I'm going to break down and record myself doing a few of these songs just to show you how beautifully, dramatically, compellingly and accurately they can be done. I'll make you hear the song by seeing it. No brag. Just fact.
1 comment:
Happy to see the view on the list. well played
Joe
theviewfromladylake.blogspot.com
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