I once had a girl...

Question

I am always trying to translate everything that I see to Spanish, just for practice during the day.

There is an old song my the Beatles, called Norwegian Wood (the Bird has Flown) that has the following lyrics:

I once had a girl, or should I say she once had me.

So I tried to translate this - and this is my attempt:

Una vez tuva una chica, o debo decir, ella una vez me tuvo.

Does this translate correctly? Am I breaking a cardinal rule by using a subject pronoun (ella)?

Muchas gracias por toda su ayuda!

Una vez tuvE A una chica. (misspelled tuve and forgot personal a...or at least I think personal a is required there. Cheers. And, this is one case where it would actually almost be required to use ella (in my opinion). - webdunce, Sep 29, 2010

Thanks webdunce - I am still working on learning the personal a..... - 001a2987, Sep 29, 2010

Answer 1

You're exploring difficult territory here, because the translation of songs and poetry works somewhat differently from plain prose.

What did John mean by that? Can it be taken literally? How can you convey the same feeling of the original song and expressions in Spanish?

Your translation, from a literal point of view, is fine - except that I would add "me tuvo a mi" in the end for reciprocity.

From the point of view of poetic translation, I'm sorry to say, it stinks!

But don't be discouraged. It's a good exercise, and a great way to learn!

This tidbit from Wikipedia's article on the song, I think, should help a lot - plus it's very interesting:

Peter Asher [brother of McCartney's then-girlfriend Jane Asher] had his room done out in wood, a lot of people were decorating their places in wood. Norwegian wood. It was pine, really, cheap pine. But it's not as good a title, "Cheap Pine", baby. So it was a little parody really on those kind of girls who when you'd go to their flat there would be a lot of Norwegian wood. It was completely imaginary from my point of view but in John's it was based on an affair he had. This wasn't the decor of someone's house, we made that up. So she makes him sleep in the bath and then finally in the last verse I had this idea to set the Norwegian wood on fire as revenge, so we did it very tongue in cheek. She led him on, then said, "You'd better sleep in the bath." In our world the guy had to have some sort of revenge ... so it meant I burned the f*** place down

Personally, I admit I had never bothered to try and find out what the song meant, so I was a bit shocked. I mean, it's such a pretty song!

Answer 2

Thank you for the help and the explanation, Gekkosan...

That is a very interesting article! I never realized the meaning behind it, like you said, the song is so pretty, I would never have guessed the meaning was even close to that!!

Thanks again!!

Answer 3

YouTube

Answer 4

Forgetting the song / poetic stuff and going with the literal idea only...what is the most natural way to say it? (Not to say that the OP's way was wrong...I just thought there might be a more natural way and that the OP might like to know it)

My attempt: Una vez tuve a una chica, o, más bien, ella a mí.

That works, too. For me, the problem is that I cannot see myself saying something along the lines "I had a girl", either in English or Spanish. Maybe too much pc-ness in my impressionable years, or something... Just something that will never be "natural" - Gekkosan, Sep 29, 2010

...for me. - Gekkosan, Sep 29, 2010