These songs were selected imagining the process of approaching a text or the sounds of an unknown language. I was primarily imagining the process that Jimmy went through to translate the book without knowing French, and also how translation is a process of creation. During the process of translation and creation the relation the person has to that text and the new thing that is created and how much control the person who is trying to understand has over the outcome of what is to be translatable and understood.

1: The Books – Lemon of Pink

This pace of this song has the feeling of apprehensive exploration, or maybe just the feeling of approach. Staring down a row of books in a library can give a similar feeling, or approaching a text written in an unknown language, daunting but with some sort of promise of unknown reward. The feeling before the process begins.


2: O’ Paon - Raffinerie

When I received this song I listened to it over and over again using google translate to try and figure out what the song was about imagining that in some small way I was participating in a similar shorter version of Jimmy’s project. I only got as far as knowing that it is about a wall and a refinery, maybe it is the presentation of a factory as a contrast to the kind of life the singer thinks people should live. Am I better off not knowing what the song is about? By not fully understanding the song can I enjoy it more?

3: Tenniscoats – Baibaba Bimba

The chorus doesn’t necessary mean anything in Japanese, but I like that it sounds like it could mean something. To the listener that doesn’t care about the lyric or meaning the chorus is just a container for the melody. I like to think about the listener who might try and imagine that Baibaba Bimba means something. It doesn’t have too, but the experience of imagining what it might mean or searching for words that aren’t in the dictionary is what’s important here.

4: Danny Kaye - Tchaikovsky (and other Russians)

This song is all about how fun it is to say Russian names really fast. To the person who hasn’t studied Russian or memorized the song it’s an easy giggle fest. The effect comes from the realization that it would take a significant amount of memorization to rattle off these names at this speed.



5: Radio Pyongyang – Numbers Game

This song is from a compilation made in part by short wave radio enthusiasts in China recording North Korean radio.

6: Kazumoto Endo – Night Falls on Ikeburo

Words supposedly come from the primal and raw subconscious I don’t think the subconscious has any sort of character until you give it one via words but its debatable, does your character determine what a translation will be? Is it innate or does a good translation require you to remove your ego from the process? Does a good piece of art require a removal of ego from the translation process? This song demands feeling, even if it is repulsion, and I think its interesting to consider the directness its able to achieve on some levels without words.

7: Queen - Body Language

I read a story one time about a massage therapist who claimed the Body contained certain amounts of information and that when you read something or experiencing something it doesn’t always get recorded in some sort of ephemeral conscious, but it is always physically or physiologically recorded in the tissue of your body. Whether it was brain tissue or muscle tissue, the theory was that your body becomes a giant record throughout your life. The article also suggested that someone expertly trained in massage therapy could read the story of a patient’s life through touch.

8: Lucky Dragons – Oh I Understand!

This song wonderfully focuses on the moment where you feel you can understand something that previously could not be understood, like the realization of this book. The searching process

9: Kyrgyz Boys Singing on Youtube

This is taken from a youtube video of a traveler who visited Kyrgyzstan. Several small boys out on the steppe are huddled around the camera while one boy sings this song. The comments from the video seem to remark on the innocence of the boys. I tried to memorize this song and sing it to my friend who lives in Bishkek to surprise her thinking it was some sort primary school song everyone learns, only to find out that its some sort of filthy limerick about boys perving out on girls in school. At least that what she told me, I wonder if the boys were playing a trick on the unsuspecting tourists….

10: Aphex Twin -Avril 14th

The clarity and simplicity of this song makes me think about grammar. No matter how many times you listen to this song, there are certain parts that stick out amongst others, although all parts are necessary to make the song work. Why is that?


11: Free Me From My Body - Unplanned Rendered

This is several wave files taken from field recordings of animals giving birth and being born, overlaid using a sound editor. It’s the natural sounds of creation, but there is nothing really beautiful about it. It most often takes some sort of intentional structuring and planning to wow the ear. It may be the same with translation and writing, the human desire to make things relatable.