A German language version of ‘She Loves You’, ‘Sie Liebt Dich’ was recorded by The Beatles in Paris in January 1964, along with ‘Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand’, a similar reworking of ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’.
EMI’s West German couterpart, Electrola Gesellschaft, persuaded the group to re-record the songs, for release as a double a-side single in February 1964. The practice of recording special versions for foreign markets was a common occurrence at the time, but the 29 January session was the only time The Beatles did so.
As noted by Ian MacDonald in Revolution In The Head, foreign-language versions of British hits subsequently fell out of favour. “The resulting promotion of the English language around the world is one of [The Beatles’] most substantial, and least documented, achievements,” he wrote.
The translation was done at short notice by Camillo Felgen, a singer, lyricist and television and radio presenter. He received an urgent phone call from Otto Demmlar, an EMI producer in Germany, asking if he would translate ‘She Loves You’ and ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’, and travel to Paris to teach the phonetic pronunciations to The Beatles.
Felgen rose to the challenge and immediately set off for France. The Beatles were in Paris for a 19-day series of concerts at the city’s Olympia Theatre.
As if forty-odd shows weren’t enough, Brian would also arrange all these other duties, like writing and recording sessions. While we were in Paris, we ended up re-recording ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’ and ‘She Loves You’ in German: ‘Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand’ and ‘Sie Liebt Dich’ by Die Beatles. Our producer, George Martin, came over for the recording at the Pathé Marconi studio, and at the same time we put down the basic tracks for ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’.
The Lyrics: 1956 To The Present
In the studio
When The Beatles had recorded ‘She Loves You’ on 1 July 1963, and it had been mixed for mono, the original two-track tape had been destroyed by EMI. For ‘Sie Liebt Dich’, therefore, the group had to re-record the song again from scratch.
This they did in 13 takes, following which they overdubbed their vocals. The new lyrics by Felgen kept the familiar “Yeah, yeah, yeah” refrain of the original.
The vocals took multiple takes to complete, and were edited together for the final version.
They were extremely pleased to get it over with. We all were. I found the studio very odd to work in, the equipment was alien to anything we were used to.
The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions, Mark Lewisohn
Camillo Felgen used the alias J Nicolas for his songwriting credit – his full name was Camillo Jean Nicolas Felgen. ‘Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand’ and ‘Sie Liebt Dich’ were credited to Lennon/McCartney/Nicolas/Hellmer – the latter presumably being a misspelling of Otto Demmlar’s surname.
On all British releases, including Past Masters, the songs were given the familiar Lennon-McCartney credit.
One has to keep in mind what music was played in Germany in those days. It was mostly “Schlagermusik” (Wiki it as “Schlager music”!) and was preferable German languaged. The record company speculated to get higher sales among the Schlager-friends. Today it gives us a laugh or better a teenage giggle, because for us who speak German they sing “Sie liebt dick, yeah, yeah, yeah!” wich means “She loves dick, yeah, yeah, yeah!” Well… umh…
Dich, like Ich, can be pronounced either Dick or Di(sch), as Ich is either Ick or I(sch). It depends on what part of Germany you are from. Proper Hochdeutsch it is probably closer to ikh.
Funny. But you have to translate completely because ‘dick’ ist a german word, too. “She loves thick, yeah, yeah, yeah!”
It should be pronounced ‘deechh” like with a long e and ending with cat hissing kinda sound.
That would have been difficult, given how fast the song moves along.
The vowel length as well as the length of the word as a whole is fine, actually.
Julie is correct, however, about the final consonants.
(That sound is troublesome to English speakers, because it does not exist in most accents of English. Scottish has something similar: “Loch Ness”. Although still markedly different, that sound is a much better guideline than the [k] sound most English native speakers fall back to when they come across one of these German words.
Holding the consonant at the end wouldn’t have worked, given the pace of the song (there’s no pause between “dich” and “yeah”). Pronouncing it “Dech” vs. “Dik” certainly would’ve been close enough, however.
This recorded version is slightly faster than the original.
This is a fun little article.
If only they sung it as “Sie Liebt Dich, Ja , Ja, Ja”!
Have a direct translation! Not a bad job – though I don’t know why he should apologise if he’s apparently blameless… Whatever!
Du denkst sie liebt nur mich (You think she only loves me)
Gestern hab’ ich sie gesehen (I saw her yesterday)
Sie denkt ja nur an dich (She only thinks of you)
Und du solltest zu ihr gehen (And you should go to her)
Oh ja, sie liebt dich! (Oh yes, she loves you!)
Schöner kann es gar nicht sein! (And it doesn’t get better than that!)
Ja, sie liebt dich (Yes, she loves you)
Und da solltest du dich freuen! (And you should be glad about it!)
Du hast ihr Weh getan (You hurt her)
Sie wußte nicht warum (She didn’t know why)
Du warst nicht schuld daran (You weren’t to blame)
Und drehtest dich nicht um (And you didn’t turn your back [on her])
Oh ja, sie liebt dich! (Oh yes, She loves you!)
Schöner kann es gar nicht sein! (And it doesn’t get better than that!)
Ja, sie liebt dich (Yes, she loves you)
Und da solltest du dich freuen! (And you should be glad about it!)
Sie liebt dich, yeah, yeah, yeah (She loves you yeah, yeah, yeah)
Sie liebt dich, yeah, yeah, yeah (She loves you yeah, yeah, yeah)
Denn mit dir allein, kann sie nur glücklick sein (Because [it’s] only with you she can be happy)
Du musst jetzt zu ihr gehen (You must go to her now)
Entschuldig’ dich bei ihr (Apologise to her)
Ja, das wird sie verstehen (Yes, she’ll understand that)
Und dann verzeiht sie dir (And then she’ll forgive you)
Oh ja, sie liebt dich! (Oh yes, She loves you!)
Schöner kann es gar nicht sein! (And it doesn’t get better than that!)
Ja, sie liebt dich (Yes, she loves you)
Und da solltest du dich freuen! (And you should be glad about it!)
Sie liebt dich, yeah, yeah, yeah (She loves you yeah, yeah, yeah)
Sie liebt dich, yeah, yeah, yeah (She loves you yeah, yeah, yeah)
Denn mit dir allein, kann sie nur glücklick sein (Because [it’s] only with you she can be happy)
Denn mit dir allein, kann sie nur glücklick sein (Because [it’s] only with you she can be happy)
Denn mit dir allein, kann sie nur glücklick sein (Because [it’s] only with you she can be happy)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeeeeeah!
Makes me glad the translation didn’t have to go the other way!
Leaving aside the translated lyrics , it has to be said that the re-recorded backing track is superb , which is not surprising as they had now been playing the song live for over five months . I think I heard somewhere that they destroyed the original two track master as it had so many edits physically joined with tape that it was too fragile to keep .
I read that it was standard EMI practise to erase and re-use session tapes of singles once the mono master had been made. This was only stopped after problems such as in this instance of needing to re-record the instrumental track for an alternate language vocal track started cropping up. Frankly I’m surprised that session tapes of only two of The Beatles’ singles were lost this way.
A minor issue is that “sein” does not rhyme with “freuen” in that repeated quatrain– like trying to rhyme “oy” with “eye”. It sounds like they are singing “freien” which is more like celebrate rather than rejoicing or being glad. But, hey, it amounts to the same joyous and triumphant sentiment, I suppose. You don’t lose the girl.
I don’t understand why Odeon wasted The Beatles’ time by unnecessarily having them record German-language versions of “She Loves You” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand” – even George Martin acknowledged that The Beatles were right in their resistance.
Because the German version was a re-recording fans have mixed and sequenced the German stereo mix with the original she loves you and create a composite stereo mix of she loves you (in English of
Course)