"Komm gib mir deine Hand"

Backdated, archival post

[link to original on tumblr]

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Last night I listened to Past Masters, Volume One.  (While drafting this post, I realized that for years I'd been completely ignorant of the pun in the titles of those albums.  There's "Masters" in the sense of "masters of their craft," but there's also "Masters" in the recording sense, like "master tapes.")  I was especially interested in "Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand" (the German version of "I Want to Hold Your Hand").  I'd noticed before that there are some significant differences between the German lyrics and the original English lyrics, so I thought I'd write about them.

I'm going to go section by section: first, my transcription the original English lyrics; then my transcription of the German lyrics; and then my translation (and some commentary) of those German lyrics.

First verse (English):

Oh, yeah, I'll tell you something
I think you'll understand
When I say that something
I wanna hold your hand
I wanna hold your hand
I wanna hold your hand

First verse (German):

Oh, komm doch, komm zu mir
Du nimmst mir den Verstand
Oh, komm doch, komm zu mir
Komm, gib mir deine Hand
Komm, gib mir deine Hand
Komm, gib mir deine Hand

First verse (German translation):

Oh, come, come to me
You take my senses away
Oh, but come, come to me
Come, give me your hand
Come, give me your hand
Come, give me your hand

Despite nearly a decade of studying German (I'm only four days short of ten years), I'm still not always sure how to translate doch.  Sometimes - as in the first "Oh, komm doch, komm zu mir" - I think it's just used as a filler word.  In the second "Oh, komm doch, komm zu mir" though, it does have the sense of "however" or "nevertheless" that my German-English dictionary gives me.  It's like, "Even though you take away my senses, come to me anyway."

I think it's interesting that both second lines (the original English and the German version) have some form of understanding, but where the English has the girl understanding what the speaker/singer is about to say, the German version has the speaker/singer rendered insensible because of the girl.  She takes away his understanding.

I should mention that I took some liberties with that line.  More literally, it's "You take [from] me the understanding."

Second verse (English):

Oh, please say to me
You'll let me be your man
And please say to me
You'll let me hold your hand
You'll let me hold your hand
I wanna hold your hand

Second verse (German):

Oh, du bist so schön
Schön wie ein Diamant
Ich will mit dir gehen
Komm, gib mir deine Hand
Komm, gib mir deine Hand
Komm, gib mir deine Hand

Second verse (German translation):

Oh, you are so beautiful
Beautiful like a diamond
I want to go with you
Come, give me your hand
Come, give me your hand
Come, give me your hand

I'm actually a bit unsure of my transcription of the English lyrics for this verse.  What I heard as a second "You'll let me hold your hand" is given as "Now let me hold your hand" in The Beatles Complete Chord Songbook.  Listening closely, it seems that John and Paul aren't singing the same thing there, but I can't make out who's singing what or what the other lyric is.

There are different shades of meaning of the line "Schön wie ein Diamant," depending on whether you read the preceding line break (and repetition of "schön") as a division of the sentiment.  Retaining the thread from the previous line, "Du bist so schön wie ein Diamant" is translated as "You are as beautiful as a diamond."  ("So… wie" is translated as "As… as.")  If you read the line break as a split, "so" is just a plain adverb, rendering the line as "You are so beautiful," and "wie" is translated as "like," for the less-complimentary "Beautiful like a diamond."

Bridge (English):

And when I touch you, I feel happy inside
It's such a feeling that, my love
I can't hide
I can't hide
I can't hide

Bridge (German):

In deinen Armen bin ich glücklich und froh
Das war noch nie bei einer anderen
Einmal so
Einmal so
Einmal so

Bridge (German translation):

In your arms am I happy and glad
It was never with another
Once like that
Once like that
Once like that

When I listened to the song, I thought it was "bei einer anderen," and while I'm confident in my translation ("with an other"), I don't think I have the German endings right.  Bei is a preposition that takes dative case, and while einer is the singular feminine dative form of a, there's a problem with anderen.  The "-en" ending in dative case indicates plural.  So this would be "with an others," which doesn't make any sense.

I hadn't realized this before undertaking this exercise, but both versions emphasize things through repetition here.  The original English lyrics illustrate the singer/speaker's complete inability to hide his feeling (he has to say three times that he can't hide it), and through the repetition of "[never] once like that" in the German lyrics, the speaker/singer seems to demonstrate his dissatisfaction with his previous relationship in contrast to this one.

In the English lyrics, the third and fourth verses are (with some differences) the same as the first.  In the German lyrics, the third verse is exactly the same as the first, and the fourth verse is exactly the same as the second.

In the liner notes to Past Masters, Volume One, Mark Lewisohn says that after "Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand" and "Sie Liebt Dich" (the German version of "She Loves You"), "The Beatles ensured they never again recorded in anything other than their mother tongue."  It's pedantic, but I have to point out that this isn't true.  Offhand, I can mention that there's French in "Michelle" and Spanish in "Sun King."  Lewisohn might mean that they never recorded an-other song completely in an-other language, but that's not what he says.