Have you ever said: “How beautiful is this song!” And then tried to translate it into your own language only to think: “Ugh! This sounds really beautiful in Spanish (or any language) but weird in English!” Well, translating songs this way is one thing, but professionally translating song lyrics is completely different.
Although the translation of song lyrics is a branch of translation that traditional studies haven’t paid much attention to, I find it a very interesting and creatively challenging type of work for the translator. Song translators must have excellent language skills, but also an ear for music. So, I thought, why not make a blog of it!

Song translation may be seen as falling under poetry translation, since the main difficulties associated with these types of translation are quite similar: in both the translator must be faithful to the original while achieving the same poetic effect. However, translating lyrics adds a significant level of complexity because not only must the concepts of the original be rendered in the target language, they must also match the musical structure and phrasing, and adjust the text into a preset melody and rhythm. Not an easy task, by any stretch of the imagination!

First of all: Every syllable of a song text is matched up with a musical note. So the translation has to retain the same number of syllables. But don’t forget that there’s also a rhyming pattern! So the translator has to find corresponding rhyming words in the target language, without completely destroying the song’s meaning.
Achieving exact equivalence is nearly impossible since each language has different particularities when it comes to rhyming, sounds, rhythms, etc. That’s why, instead of talking about song translation, some wonder whether we would be better off calling it adaptation or creating a new version.

Throughout the short history of linguistics dedicated to the analysis of song translation, two main approaches are apparent: logocentrism, which states that words are more important than music; and musicocentrism, which places more importance on the music than the message.

There are many interesting websites dedicated to the translation of lyrics, like http://lyricstranslate.com/ but, if you can think of a special song in a foreign language, I encourage you to give it a shot and try to make a new version in your own language. You may find out you have a gift for it!