Well, that’s probably because today’s stars would laugh at the idea of re-recording their hits for foreign markets. But it wasn’t always that way…
On 29 January 1964, the Beatles bundled into a Paris recording studio to record German versions of their early hits (Sie liebt Dich)and (Komm, gib mir deine Hand), quickly re-written by Luxembourger . The Beatles only ever formal recording session outside of London was inspired by record label EMI’s German producer, Otto Demler, who had flown in to Paris to convince the band that re-recording the songs would help them sell records in Germany and beyond.
Within 24 hours, Felgen had taught the Beatles the new lyrics (phonetically) and the songs were recorded. While the band were reluctant to record in German, they weren’t completely new to the language, having spent a couple of years honing their skills in Hamburg at the start of the sixties.
The Fab Four weren’t the only artists to enjoy a taste of German culture before achieving worldwide acclaim. After the Second World War, a young Johnny Cash was stationed in Landsberg (near Munich) as a radio operator with the U.S. Air Force. It was in there that he bought his first guitar and created first band, the Landsberg Barbarians.
Fast-forward 15 years and Johnny Cash is a superstar in America. Hits like “Walk the Line” and “Ring of Fire” have topped the charts and Cash has sold millions of records. Executives at CBS had observed the growing appetite for American music in Europe and encouraged their artist to record something for the German market too. The results, still little known to this day, can be found .
Johnny Cash also re-recorded a couple of songs in Spanish… check out “”. Cash aficionados generally agree that his German sounds much better than his Spanish. Proof, if proof were needed, of the power of cultural exposure in language learning!
Of course, anything the Beatles could do, the Stones would have a go at too. Keith Richards and Mick Jagger’s first self-penned success, “As Tears Go By”, was re-recorded in Italian and released in Italy as .
The band delighted Milanese fans by performing the song in Italian during their “A Bigger Bang” tour in 2006.