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FOUND IN TRANSLATION by Jessica Zafra

I was caffeinating at the mall when a youthful lady with white hair said hello. It was Celeste Legaspi. “I’ve been listening to your versions of American pop songs translated by Tinio!” I babbled. That album came out ages ago, she laughed. “I copied it from my friend’s iTunes library last year,” I said. “Please record again.”

The music industry is so different now, she said. Commercial considerations override all others. “You could record the tracks in your house and upload them on the net,” I went on. Her daughters laughed. “She’s lazy,” they said.

When I was growing up in the 70s, Filipino musicians regularly did Tagalog versions of songs in English. Hajji Alejandro did the Bee Gees’ Charade as Tag-Araw, Tag-Ulan, and in his cover of Barbra Streisand’s The Way We Were, Rico J. Puno suddenly switched to Tagalog and turned the song into something else entirely. They didn’t cover songs the way Pinoy singers do today (note-for-note exact imitations, down to the breathing and the hand movements. Today’s most successful proponents of the full mimicry (’plakado’) approach: Arnel Pineda/Steve Perry of Journey and Charice Pempengco/Whitney Houston.) The material was borrowed, but they colonized it completely (”Namamasyal pa sa Luneta”).

The finest translations/adaptations of the words to popular songs were by the great Rolando Tinio. He’d already translated Shakespeare into Filipino, so pop music must’ve been a breeze. Take the Burt Bacharach-Hal David songs, One Less Bell to Answer and A House Is Not A Home. Every time I hear them I start giggling. Look at these lyrics:

One less bell to answer
One less egg to fry
One less man to pick up after
I should be happy but all I do is cry
(Note: Were you the lover or the maid?)

A rudimentary literal translation would begin:

Isang timbreng di sasagutin
Isang itlog na di piprituhin…

How about that Philo 11 hommage:

A chair is not a chair
Even when there’s no one sitting there
But a chair is not a house
And a house is not a home

Literally:

Ang salumpuwit ay salumpuwit pa rin
Kahit walang nakaupo roon. . .

Instead of a literal approach that would expose the cornball silliness of the lyrics, Tinio went for the literary.

Di na hahainan
Di na susundan
Tuwing siya’y may kinakailangan
Sinong hindi pa
Pasasalamat na

and

Walang nagpapalit
Sa datihang ayos ng silid
Nguni’t di magpapalit
Ang himbing ng pag-idlip…

The risible has been made poignant, and with Celeste Legaspi’s lovely theatrical delivery (very clear enunciation) it’s positively heart-rending. Remember when singers interpreted songs rather than belting the hell out of them? A lot of what passes for singing these days is actually song abuse.

The masterpiece among the Celeste Legaspi-Rolando Tinio collaborations is their version of Rodgers and Hart’s The Lady Is A Tramp. Their title: Ako’y Bakyang-Bakya. It’s not merely a linguistic translation, but an adaptation from one culture to another. The original lyrics are full of American references; Tinio placed the song firmly in a Philippine context while keeping its wickedly funny spirit.

I’ve wined and dined on mulligan stew and never wished for turkey
As I’ve hitched and hiked and grifted too, from Maine to Albuquerque

becomes

Ang hilig ko’y butong-pakwan, ayoko ng pastillas
Nagdi-jeep ako miski saan, hanggang sa Dasmarinas.