A note on transcribing lyrics by listening

[Ivan Ž.]

Hello, everyone

We've recently had several attempts of posting lyrics transcribed by listening, against which I keep advising. Now, don't get me wrong: it can often be very helpful, I know, I did it myself many times in the past, but over the years the internet world has taught me to be extra cautious about everything that's being published, for the majority of people don't really care about accuracy and will spread both correct and incorrect info, without checking it (let alone correcting it). And once it's spread you won't be able to correct the mistake you made. And why risk making a mistake (i.e. posting misinformation) in the first place if you can, in this case, find the original, correct lyrics?

Most historical songs were published in a printed form, one only needs to be patient and keep searching for them. Otherwise, you'll risk eventually becoming responsible for twisting history and art - since historical music and poetry, and especially important political and wartime recordings, are historical documents, evidence and forms of art as well (often bad and kitschy though, but that's another story). No poet or writer would be happy about people changing their text, especially as a result of mishearing (artists are generally very sensitive about their work).

Therefore, I say keep transcribing lyrics by listening for your own private use, if you can't find the originals, but don't publish them online. Or, if you really need to post them for some reason, and you're absolutely confident in what you're doing, always mark them "transcribed by listening"; never represent them as official lyrics. And if you're uncertain about some of the words, leave a blank space there, instead of writing what you think they most probably sung. Don't force it.

One should also be aware that sometimes a member of a choir made a mistake when singing, which may mislead the listener into hearing what's not or shouldn't be there. They didn't make numerous takes when recording back then, like they do today, so errors can be found on records. Listen, for example, to Woitschach's Telefunken recording of "Es ist so schön, Soldat zu sein"; you'll hear one choir member starting to sing "Es...!" before time, during the instrumental intro. Or listen to Ahlers' Telefunken recording of "Heut' stechen wir ins blaue Meer"; one choir member mistakenly sings "und du, mein Schatz", while the others correctly sing "und du, mein Lieb'".

I'll also remind you of the worst known example of lyrics incorrectly transcribed by listening - "Das Lied der Junkers Flugzeug- und Motorenwerke" posted on ingeb.org - where so many mistakes were made that the song got an entirely new meaning (see this post). They even got the song title wrong (copied from a low-quality postwar LP). That website, by the way, was a fantastic and largely helpful project, visited and copied by countless people, but the lyrics incorrectly transcribed by listening, which weren't separated from the correct ones copied from songbooks, completely devalued the entire work, marking the website unreliable as a whole.

There was also a case of an author (a native German speaker and a good researcher) hearing a word in a song properly - but mistaking its spelling! The word was "Dalles" (poverty) and he thought it was the name Dulles (John Foster Dulles, American politician), which is pronounced the same. Therefore, he completely misunderstood the meaning of an innocent song, misinterpreting it as a political propaganda piece. Which shows yet another possible downside of transcribing lyrics by listening.

By the way, a couple of days ago a new member tried to post lyrics to "SS im schwarzen Waffenkleid" that he found online (not that he credited the source - I had to search for it). The lyrics were transcribed by listening and contained mistakes that, yet again, changed the meaning of some of the lines completely. Again, it's a historical document, it's not a source of light amusement (as many people misuse history for). Furthermore, the song's designation he added was incorrect, containing an abbreviation that never existed. Therefore, the post was removed as anti-historical. The original lyrics of that song were published in a printed form, no need to guess (and change) the words - find an original copy instead (search for Liederbuch der NSDAP, edited by Hans Bajer, Munich, 1934).

Cheers,
Ivan