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Composed and sung originally in English by Odette Quesada, translated to Tagalog and sung in Tagalog by Su Layug.

Lately I find myself translating English songs to Tagalog. I find this task extra challenging on a couple more levels than translating poetry. My self-imposed challenges are the following:

  1. Transfer of meaning: the meaning of the song must be preserved as much as possible in a culturally resonant way, meaning, the translated lines must sound as though they were written in the target language.
  2. The phrasing must fall naturally, as much as possible, for singability.
  3. If possible, maintain a rhyming scheme, again to contribute to the translated song’s singability. And the most challenging and rewarding one:
  4. The translation must have a turn of phrase or two that is poetically particular to the target language.

The originally English song that I’m featuring here was composed, recorded and immortalized by Odette Quesada — an icon in the Philippine music industry. I chose this particular song as my first (public) adventure in song translation because it has a personal back story, not in the sense of the song’s meaning – a one-sided romance between two friends – but in the twists and turns of friendship and romance that childhood friends sometimes get intertwined in. Many times, these love triangles are not as obvious as the coming-of-age Hollywood movies portray them to be, nor quite as well-defined as the triangle imagined by the non-recipient of the unrequited love. In any case, I’d like to think that in such love-and-friendship stories, friendship ultimately prevails, as it is, in many times, greater and more enduring, than romantic love.

Aking Kaibigan 

Kaibigan ka noon 

Kaibigan pa rin ngayon

Hanggang kaibigan na lang nga ba tayong dalawa?

Mahal kita noon

Mahal pa rin ngayon

Ngunit gayunpama’y kaibigan lang pala.

Pag-ibig mo’y sa kanya lang,

Pag-ibig ko’y sa iyo laan

Ngunit kapag malungkot ka,

Lagi akong nandiyan 



Ako ang siyang takbuhan mo,

Kakwentuhan ng lambingan niyo,

Ngunit di mo man lang pansin 

Ang damdaming nananaig

Sa iyo’y nananabik 

Ngunit heto pa rin ako.




Excerpt of the original English, A Friend of Mine
Music and lyrics by Odette Quesada

I've known you for so long

You are a friend of mine

But is this all we'd ever be?

I've loved you ever since

You are a friend of mine

But babe, is this all we ever could be?

You tell me things I've never known

I've shown you love you've never shown

But then again, when you cry

I'm always at your side

You tell me 'bout the love you've had

I listen very eagerly

But deep inside you'll never see

This feeling of emptiness

It makes me feel sad

But then again, I'm glad

To put to the test the viability of the translation, I sing the translated song in a lower key than the original singer does (I am an alto).

Here’s a link to Odette Quesada’s Facebook, where a video of her recent rendition of this song in the original English is posted: https://www.facebook.com/odetteq