Lakaien English.... or "What the heck are they talking about?!?"
NOTE: the viewpoints expressed in this "essay"are not necessarily those of the management, band, fans, or any other person on this planet except for me - please don't get offended and send me nasty e-mails!!
We have all experienced it - that feeling of total perplexity, or just plain confusion, when we're listening to one of our favorite Lakaien songs, and all of a sudden there comes a line that we just can't decode. I think you all know what I mean, don't you? I suppose I have it a bit easier, being a native English speaker, but even I have had some moments, wherein I just hit my head against the wall, and think, "What is he talking about???"
This subject came up in the chat last night, and I got to thinking more deeply about it today, whilst walking around Berlin, listening to The Sweet Life. Just what is behind this, what we have affectionately dubbed, "Lakaien English." Where does it come from, and why does it persist in confusing us, the fans?
My brain came up with several reasons. The first, and most obvious, being that Misters Horn and Veljanov, while their English is better than most Americans I know, are not native English speakers. They do make the occasional grammatical error, and I don't know about you, but I have certainly forgiven them for this. I can't imagine writing songs in another language, not my mother tongue, let alone such damned GOOD ones! To create the imagery and invoke the feelings that their songs do, I'm sure, takes much time and thought, as well as mental energy, and you really can't expect them to do it perfectly every time.
Another reason is, at least in my mind, that they need a little bit more punctuation in their lyric sheets. Steve gave an example of what I am talking about last night in the chat, with the quotation and question, " 'He will let you watch undress' but watch WHO undress?" In my mind, a well-placed comma would alleviate the confusion, at least for that phrase. Looking over the Lakaien booklets, I do see commas and quotation marks here and there, but the songs that contain them seem to be random. For instance, I can't just look at them and say, "All of Ernst's songs have punctuation, and Alexander's don't." At first, I thought that might be the case, for none of Alexander's solo cds' booklets have punctuation, but I was wrong. It's not as easy as that.. and there are no punctuation marks at all in the White Lies booklet! I never thought I would be lusting so much after simple commas and semi-colons!
Now, I move on to my next reason, which sort of cancels out the last one. In comparing the texts which I know were written by Ernst, to those written by Alexander, I tend to find that Ernst's texts are more concrete in their meaning, more clearly cut and well-defined. You can listen to his texts, and know exactly what he wants you to know, and feel exactly the feelings he put into them. Alexander's texts are more fantastical, and you must hear them with your heart and imagination, not just your ears. That isn'tto say that Ernst's texts aren't imaginative! Both men do a wonderful job of relaying whatever feeling it is that they set out to relay to us, both are great conjurors of images. But I personally find that with Alexander's songs, I have to lie back, close my eyes, and simply ignore the words. That being said, I have to admit that punctuation does not make a great amount of difference, if one is ignoring the words of a song, and just feeling the feelings within it!
The downside of this fantastical conjuring, is that sometimes songs appear, that really no one can decipher. I myself have no idea what Kiss the Future, Venus Man, Town by the River (though I have my own ideas), and Fish are about - maybe someone can help me with this? And I won't even mention Song for a mad choir singer, or Fashion, Passion and Pigaches (both of which I totally love, by the way)!
So in conclusion... well, I don't really know what kind of conclusions I could draw from all of this, except that Lakaien were, are, and always will be tremendous, despite their occasional weirdness of language. I suspect that you all will agree with me on this point, at least
NOTE: the viewpoints expressed in this "essay"are not necessarily those of the management, band, fans, or any other person on this planet except for me - please don't get offended and send me nasty e-mails!!
We have all experienced it - that feeling of total perplexity, or just plain confusion, when we're listening to one of our favorite Lakaien songs, and all of a sudden there comes a line that we just can't decode. I think you all know what I mean, don't you? I suppose I have it a bit easier, being a native English speaker, but even I have had some moments, wherein I just hit my head against the wall, and think, "What is he talking about???"
This subject came up in the chat last night, and I got to thinking more deeply about it today, whilst walking around Berlin, listening to The Sweet Life. Just what is behind this, what we have affectionately dubbed, "Lakaien English." Where does it come from, and why does it persist in confusing us, the fans?
My brain came up with several reasons. The first, and most obvious, being that Misters Horn and Veljanov, while their English is better than most Americans I know, are not native English speakers. They do make the occasional grammatical error, and I don't know about you, but I have certainly forgiven them for this. I can't imagine writing songs in another language, not my mother tongue, let alone such damned GOOD ones! To create the imagery and invoke the feelings that their songs do, I'm sure, takes much time and thought, as well as mental energy, and you really can't expect them to do it perfectly every time.
Another reason is, at least in my mind, that they need a little bit more punctuation in their lyric sheets. Steve gave an example of what I am talking about last night in the chat, with the quotation and question, " 'He will let you watch undress' but watch WHO undress?" In my mind, a well-placed comma would alleviate the confusion, at least for that phrase. Looking over the Lakaien booklets, I do see commas and quotation marks here and there, but the songs that contain them seem to be random. For instance, I can't just look at them and say, "All of Ernst's songs have punctuation, and Alexander's don't." At first, I thought that might be the case, for none of Alexander's solo cds' booklets have punctuation, but I was wrong. It's not as easy as that.. and there are no punctuation marks at all in the White Lies booklet! I never thought I would be lusting so much after simple commas and semi-colons!
Now, I move on to my next reason, which sort of cancels out the last one. In comparing the texts which I know were written by Ernst, to those written by Alexander, I tend to find that Ernst's texts are more concrete in their meaning, more clearly cut and well-defined. You can listen to his texts, and know exactly what he wants you to know, and feel exactly the feelings he put into them. Alexander's texts are more fantastical, and you must hear them with your heart and imagination, not just your ears. That isn'tto say that Ernst's texts aren't imaginative! Both men do a wonderful job of relaying whatever feeling it is that they set out to relay to us, both are great conjurors of images. But I personally find that with Alexander's songs, I have to lie back, close my eyes, and simply ignore the words. That being said, I have to admit that punctuation does not make a great amount of difference, if one is ignoring the words of a song, and just feeling the feelings within it!
The downside of this fantastical conjuring, is that sometimes songs appear, that really no one can decipher. I myself have no idea what Kiss the Future, Venus Man, Town by the River (though I have my own ideas), and Fish are about - maybe someone can help me with this? And I won't even mention Song for a mad choir singer, or Fashion, Passion and Pigaches (both of which I totally love, by the way)!
So in conclusion... well, I don't really know what kind of conclusions I could draw from all of this, except that Lakaien were, are, and always will be tremendous, despite their occasional weirdness of language. I suspect that you all will agree with me on this point, at least