Like A Rolling Stone (1965) part 16: Beauty in Sound

Posted on February 17, 2025 by Tony Attwood

Like A Rolling Stone (1965) part 16

by Jochen Markhorst

XVI      Beauty in Sound

Between the two extremes of our Japanese Dylan friends on the one hand and the Received Pronunciation of the very English Barb Jungr on the other, there are 9,559.36 kilometres (5,939.91 miles), 40 countries, some 31 official national languages and a multiple of that if you also start counting all the languages of minority groups (Catalan, Sámi, Kipchak… those languages). And translations of “Like A Rolling Stone” can be found in every language, and always more than one translation per language. If not in officially translated Lyrics, then by professional musicians with poetic talent, if not by well-meaning YouTube amateurs with acoustic guitar in the living room, then on enthusiastic fan blogs. The song, after all, hit like a a comet, was felt worldwide, and its magic continues to be picked up by each next generation.

So the usual favourite Italian has quite a bit of competition. Even from above the Alps; by nature, German is admittedly less melodious and sonorous than Italian, but – for example – in the lilting Austrian dialect, that natural disadvantage is fairly erased. As the legendary Austropop star Wolfgang Ambros demonstrated as early as 1978 on his tribute album Wie im Schlaf – Lieder von Bob Dylan with his version of “Like A Rolling Stone”, whose title alone is more eloquent than any international competitor: “Allan wia a Stan” (“Alone like a stone”).

However, the poetic multicolour has evaporated from Ambros’ translation. No Siamese cats, no princess on the steeple, no Miss Lonely… the Austrian rocker writes four interchangeable couplets in which four times the downfall of the little tart is sung:

Vor langer Zeit, warst so elegant
Und hast no glaubt, du bist was Besseres, is' net wahr
Und wann wer g'sagt hat, pass bitte auf
Dann hast nua g'locht, weil des für di so lustig war
Du hast di lustig g'mocht
Olle andern hast laut aus'glocht
Aber jetzt schau, wohin hat di des bracht
Jetzt lachst nimma, und i hob di im Verdacht
Dass'd dich aufreißen lasst auf da Straß'n
Für an Apfel und a Ei

A long time ago, you were so elegant
And you thought you were something better, ain’t it true
And when someone said, please be careful
Then you laughed because it was so funny to you
You mocked them,
Loudly laughing at all the others
But now look where it's got you
You're not laughing now and I suspect
That you let yourself get picked up from the street
For a penny

Wolfgang Ambros – Allan wia a Stan:

… an unequivocal, dramatic decline, in other words: from haughty socialite to cheap street hooker. Sonorous, yes, but without the mercurial poetry. Similar to that other kind-of-German translation, by Cologne superstar Wolfgang Niedecken, the former frontman of BAP, the biggest German rock band of the 1980s. Niedecken is a seasoned and practising Dylan fan, has written an entire book about his Dylan love (Wolfgang Niedecken über Bob Dylan, 2021), and, apart from many covers in his beloved dialect Kölsch, has also made two entire tribute records (Leopardefell, 1995, with 17 Dylan covers, and the triple CD Dylanreise in 2022, including 19 Dylan covers – all in Kölsch). But “Wie ’ne Stein” (Like a stone) was already on an LP by BAP in 1982 (the millionseller Vun drinne noh drusse) – in a translation similarly one-dimensional as Ambros’s, and 40 years later that still annoys Niedecken a bit:

Dylan’s lyrics are poetic and multi-layered. Isn’t it fundamentally difficult to translate them?

“I really enjoy it. The longer I do it, the more faithful I become to the work. Especially with ‘Like a Rolling Stone’, I wasn’t particularly faithful back then. I wrote stuff in there… [laughs]. When I translate Dylan songs today, I really go into detail and try to stay as close as possible. I take my time with it.”
(Kölnische Rundschau, 25 March 2022)

Niedecken here addresses a mentality that is widely shared: Mir macht das einen Riesenspaß, “I really enjoy it,” and defines the approach of his working method here, which is less widely shared: ich versuche so nah dran zu bleiben, wie es nur irgend geht, “I try to stay as close as possible.” A journey around the world of all those diligent translators, from China to Finland and from Portugal to Mexico, reveals two Great Common Denominators:

– Love is the motivator,

– Faithfulness is the stumbling block.

All translators are driven by a love for Dylan’s songs. And all translators find themselves in the split: should it sound good or should I translate correctly? Chinese academics Ke Chen and Qiao Peng of Xi’an Shiyou University (A Study on the Chinese Translation of Lyrics from the Perspective of Translation Aesthetics -Taking Bob Dylan’s Lyrics as an Example, November 2024) know this too, of course, and state, “Poetry translation demands not just precise word-for-word conversion, but also the adept conveyance of intangible rhythmic nuances.” And when faced with dilemmas, prefer sound to precise translation.

Reluctantly, still. “Poetic poetry is the core part of Dylan’s songwriting, and his work contains an extraordinary poetic power,” our friends from the Far East acknowledge, finding then a basis for their challenge in the work of Lu Xun (1881-1936), the literary giant who also reflected contemplatively and essayistically on literature. As in the first article on Chinese literature, Outline of the Chinese Literature, 1925. Xun defines a kind of Holy Trinity for lyricism, which can be effortlessly transposed to the Holy Grail for any song translator: first, beauty in sense, second, beauty in sound, third, beauty in form. A similar formulation as the familiar mantra Rhyme, Rhythm and Reason, in other words. Our concern however, his followers argue in 2024, is songs. And songs must first and foremost sound good. So they shuffle the ranking of Lu Xun’s law a bit, swapping place 1 and place 2:

  1. Beauty in Sound
  2. Beauty in Sense
  3. Beauty in Form

Next, Ke Chen and Qiao Peng demonstrate with academic seriousness what consequences this has for a translation of “Like A Rolling Stone”. “鲜” (xiān) and “钱” (qián) may not strictly speaking belong to the same rhyme category, they explain, but “bring a certain rhythmic sensation to readers or listeners”, and even more academically defend their translation of the second line of verse:

“Similarly, “现” (xiàn) and “吧” (ba) also have a certain phonetic connection in spoken language, especially when “吧” is used as a modal particle, it often ends lightly, forming a contrast with the preceding syllables and adding a rhythmic sense to the language.”

… not effortlessly understandable for Western readers, but it is still clear how much the men seek Beauty in Sound. The concessions to Beauty in Sense, by the way, are minimal. Translating back, the opening lines are something like:

There was a time when you were well-dressed
Throwing vigorously a few bucks at a hobo, ain’t that true?

With charming modesty, both gentlemen apologise throughout with minor disclaimers. “When English is transformed into Chinese, due to the differences in language habits, it is easy to show traces of stiffness and far-fetched,” for example. And in the Conclusion, after demonstrations of their struggles with among others “Blowin’ In The Wind” and “Mr. Tambourine Man”: “Their [Dylan’s lyrics] political nature and creative background are very different from Chinese poetry.”

Yet: despite all the love of sound and all the care for rhythmic sense – they can’t beat Italian, Kölsch and Austrian. Well, in Western ears, anyway.

To be continued. Next up Like A Rolling Stone part 17: Hits and misses

Jochen is a regular reviewer of Dylan’s work on Untold. His books, in English, Dutch and German, are available via Amazon both in paperback and on Kindle:

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