The reason I prefer the Lasse Mårtenson cover of "Take a Walk on the Wild Side" is partially because of his singing (he's a technically gifted vocalist who also has a wonderfully lazy voice, and a talent for underselling his performance), but also because whoever translated the lyrics into Finnish did a magnificent job: the lyrics stay true to the spirit of the original song, but they've been localized so that they make sense in the context of Helsinki in the 1970s... And the translator also came up with rhymes that are more clever than the somewhat pedestrian ones (away-pay, streets-eat, etc) in the original tune. I tried to translate the Finnish lyrics into English, obviously I can't retain the meter or the rhymes of the original, but maybe this'll give you some idea of why I love the Mårtenson version:
Yrtsi*, a product of green nature**
From beyond Cough Hill** he came
He changed to be like Stadi***
Shaved his eyebrow and leg hair off
Well well, Yrtsi
How does the life taste?
Well well, Yrtsi
How does the life taste now?
Can we do it already?
Do do do do do do do...
Everything he got, Kake* sold
With other people's stuff he made money too
You can also get a loan from Kake
Though the interest rate, that's kinda higher
Well well, Kake
How does the life taste?
Well well, Kake
How does the life taste now?
Disco always plays in the head of Sisko****
I guess she can sell the her cassette player now
If the breaks of a bus screech
There's yet another "yeah yeah yeah!"
Oh hey, Sisko
How does the life taste?
Well well, Sisko
How does the life taste now?
* Yrtsi and Kake are Finnish male nicknames, mostly used of working-class men.
** "Green nature" and "Cough Hill" have a double meaning here: on the obvious textual level they refer to the countryside, as a lot of Finns moved from there to the big cities (particularly Helsinki) in the late 60s and early 70s, but they are also subtle references to marijuana. (Mårtenson was not a rock musician but a family-friendly pop singer and a jazz pianist, who had been popular since the early 60s, and it wouldn't have fitted his public image to sing about drug use in an explicit way.)
*** Stadi is the nickname of Helsinki in the local slang.
**** Sisko is a Finnish female name, it literally means "sister". So when Mårtenson sings "hei, Sisko", you could also hear it as "hey, sister". And the name rhymes with "disco", hence the internal rhyme in the first line of the third verse.
― Tuomas, Friday, 1 November 2013 13:59 (twelve years ago)
Sorry, that translation was missing the final verse:
Leiska* ambles up in the clouds** again
He went on and climbed some rainbows
He's not comfortable anymore in here
He aims high in his life
Well well, Leiska
How does the life taste?
Well well, Leiska
How does the life taste now?
* Leiska is another a male nickname.
** This is another veiled drug reference. Leiska being "up in the clouds" can be read as metaphor as him being a dreamer, or aiming "high" in his life (as the final line of the verse says), but in Finnish slang, when you say someone's "in a cloud", it's also a common euphemism for being high on drugs.
― Tuomas, Friday, 1 November 2013 15:08 (twelve years ago)