Tech

This singer uses Google Translate to write hilarious cover songs

by Richard Howard

I don’t know about you, but I’ve had some hilarious afternoons enabling YouTube’s automatic captioning and watching its speech recognition powered automatic captions attempt to decipher what’s being said in videos and inevitably fail miserably (if you can find an Eminem vid with auto-captioning, you’re in for a treat).

Perhaps inspired by that sort of tomfoolery, YouTuber and singer Malinda Kathleen Reese has answered an inspired query: What would happen if you took English song lyrics, translated them into different languages a bunch of times, and then back into English? Jokes, my friends. Mad, mad jokes.

In her ‘Google Translate Sings’ series which has racked up millions of views, Reese has tackled everything from Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You” (or, according to Google Translate, “The Me Like For Christmas Day You Can”) and Lorde’s “Royals” to Disney fare such as The Lion King classic “I Just Can’t Wait To Be King” and Frozen’s “Let It Go” (which ironically transforms into a recommendation that you “Give Up.”)

The fact that Reese and her guests are all great singers combined with her ability to pull off a convincing Tina Fey ‘WTF’ face ups the entertainment value and the farcical nature of the whole deal. Take a gander at what happens when Adele’s “Hello” is given a few passes through Google Translate. Greetings from overseas, guys!