The Smiley Smile Message Board

Is there any projects in the works from the beach boys ?
Been a while since Capitol/BRI did put out some great cd's.
Maybe some live cd/dvd ?
Can mr Boyd tell something about this ?

BEST TYPO EVER!!!!!!!!!!!

 :o  ::) i edited myself quickly  ;D

Leuk he een foutje gebruiken in je quote   :lol

Hoeveel typefouten je ook maakt, wij beheersen hun taal een stuk beter dan zij die van ons...  ;)

I like teddy bears

your avatar doesn't seem to agree...  ;D

Is this thread now an attempt to find LOL-tastic material for the Smiley Smile Quote Hall Of Fame? :)

Daar ben ik het helemaal mee eens  ;D

Nope  ;D How is your dutch ? :lol ;)

My Dutch sucks...you're probably insulting me but I'm too lazy to send it through Google Translate to find out.

That's why I like to insult in the listener/reader's own language. Saves everyone time.

I was walking around by the UN building today and there were tons of people speaking languages I didn't understand and I could've sworn they were all making fun of me.

And that is reason two for It reduces non-targets' paranoia.

so nothing new, right?   ::)

Paranoia will destroy ya! Either that or you were caught in an Ingmar Bergman film. :P

Betrouwbare bronnen hebben mij kond gedaan van het feit dat er op 4 juli 2010 een box set uitkomt met het volledige archiefmateriaal van de originele 'SMiLE' sessies uit '66/'67. Daarbij zit dan ook dat wat wij de Durrie Parks Acetaten plegen te noemen. Het zal gaan om 8 CDs. Schrijvers van het begeleidende boek zijn David Leaf, Domenic Priore, en Andrew G. Doe. Het schijnt dat de recente en lopende 'low-profile' tournees van Brian Wilson hem tot andere gedachten gebracht hebben. De meeste weerstand kwam nog van Melinda Wilson, maar na een dineetje met het echtpaar Love kwam men tot de conclusie dat alle partijen zich konden vinden in zulk een release.

Later in het jaar komt de 3-CD set 'Brother Years Rarities' uit. Alan Boyd en Mark Linett werken hard aan dit project. Geruchten willen dat van de 75 liedjes er nog circa 30 nooit door iemand gehoord zijn, uitgezonderd een kleine kring van 20 intimi, en de band zelf natuurlijk.

Niet verder vertellen, hoor.

SMiLE sessions are coming out on July 4th, 2010?

Edit: Hey, I can read Dutch!  :lol

Another Edit: When(and how) did I learn how to read Dutch?  :brow

Heartical Don, grote boef, dat zouden we toch niet verklappen?


Google Translator?

Sorry. Ik kan mijn waffel nooit stil houden. Zo ben ik nu eenmaal.

Zuig je dit allemaal uit je duim of komt dit echt uit betrouwbare bron? Zou wel zonder twijfel het mooiste zijn wat er op Beach Boys-gebied zou kunnen gebeuren...

Dont Worry, i am not insulting you in Dutch. Ask Klaas to verify  :-D

Dutchie is correct. And Shleter: I'd advise you "NOT to listen to the Don at this point..."  ;D

But before this topic has turned into a typical Sandbox topic; can we get back to the original question please?

OK, en bedankt voor de valse hoop.  ;D

I think Dutch and English are similar enough that you can get the gist of what they're saying because of all the cognates.

Well, Dutch and English are related, they're both so-called West Germanic languages.

True dat. See: compare the following two statements:

'Sakkerloot, ik heb goesting in een pikketanussie!'

'Damn, I need a stiff drink!'

Sounds similar, don't it?

I really hope for something else than the obvous Best-of. A 50th anniversary should call for something like a boxset. But what will it contain? Smile? I really don't think we'll get a Smilebox (or even a Smile-release) in the near future. Maybe the "Surf's up"audio DVD ? That album has something like a cult-factor and probably would doo good among the indie-charts I think....
And I still hope for a double CD-set with the complete Chicago '65 concert and a whole concert from the early 70s. You know, something by the classic group, who were a great liveband imo, (not to forget the important [sales-]factor that Brian Wilson is part of it) and then something that shows them at their live peak. That really would be the greatest thing for me. I don't necessarily need many unreleased songs....

Since when does a mixture of Flemish and Amsterdam dialects qualify as Dutch?  :)

Oh the irony. English is so much the world language that a native speaker doesn't really need to learn any other, unless for business or for a hobby. But at the same time the native English Speaker doesn't understand any other language in the world. Except, as I was told, for Dutch. And I guess that's quite a stretch, like me saying that I speak Portuguese and can basically (or barely) sense the meaning of a text in Rumanian.

In speech the two languages are more similar than they probably seem in writing. This is for instance your post in Dutch with every individual world translated back to English. Notice that the order of the words is very different but that a lot of the individual words sound pretty similar.

Oh [Oh] de [the] ironie [irony]. Engels [English] is [is] dusdanig [so much] de [the] wereldtaal [world language] dat [that] een [a] geboren [born] spreker [speaker] eigenlijk [actually] geen [no] andere [other] taal [language] hoeft [have] te [to] leren [learn], tenzij [unless] voor [for] zaken [business] of [or] als [as] hobby [hobby]. Maar [but] daardoor [literally: there through] begrijpt [understands (literally: grijpt = grabs] de [the] geboren [born] Engelssprekende [English speaking] geen [no] enkele [single] andere [other] taal [language] ter [on the] wereld [world]. Behalve [except], zo [so] was [was] mij [me] verteld [told], Nederlands [Dutch]. Maar [but] ik [ I] geloof [believe] dat [that] dat [that] behoorlijk [quite] overdreven [overstated] is [is], alsof [as if] ik [ I] zeg [say] dat [that] ik [ I] Portugees [Portuguese] spreek [speak] en [and] dat [that] ik [ I] zo [so] ongeveer [more or less] de [the] betekenis [meaning] van [of] een [a] tekst [text] in [in] het [the] Roemeens [Rumanian] kan [can] begrijpen [understand].

I'd like to go to Holland... wooden shoe?

Damn translates to Sakkerloot in Dutch? That's my new favorite swear word.  ;D

Sakkerloot is a very old-fashioned word, nowadays most people say verdomme.

Shelter, very interesting. Thanks.

What is the Dutch cheese that is made backwards?

Sorry, but found this in a Christmas cracker.

Edam. :)

 :lol :lol :lol I am in a library now but laughed out very, very loud. I spoke 'Sakkerloot' in my head, with a heavy US accent, and heard: 'Suck A Loot!'

Your remark is brilliant in itself!

Hey man, American's don't have an accent!!! Get real. ;D

Gelieve te masseren mijn billen. Ik heb teveel de hotdogmilkshaken van het tweekleppig schelpdiersap voor ontbijt gehad en ik moet gas van mijn anussen verdrijven.

 ;D

We proberen nog steeds ons uiterste best om een aantal nieuwe projecten die worden uitgevoerd archief er te komen, en we zijn blijven behouden en de grote massa van tapes catalogus die rust vredig in de gewelven. Dit zijn uitdagende tijden voor de muziekindustrie, zoals u allen weet, maar we hebben goede hoop dat sommige van de nieuwe technologische ontwikkelingen, met name op het gebied van online aankoop en levering opties, nieuwe kansen zal eerder te maken ongehoord nummers en uitvoeringen beschikbaar de consument. Dank u voor uw voortdurende steun.

Thanks for the update, mr. Boyd.



 :o

The rules for foul language also count for foreign languages.  ;D

I think it's time for a petition to get the use of Google translator forbidden...

Oops, sorry. I used Yahoo Babelfish and I swear I was only using medical terminology. This has been a fun thread though. Won't happen again.
 >:D

Hi Alan - you did a great job in Dutch here! There are a few hiccups (eventually) but on the whole your message comes across 100%.

Esp. the 'grote massa van tapes' is intriguing. Fine band name too...

Just kidding, don't worry.

Medical terminology? Aha, strange that somehow the "automatically generated" translation makes it sound a lot dirtier in Dutch than it was meant to be.

You have multiple anusses?  ;D

He's anally challenged.

Quite the contrary!

Or kont-rary...  ;D

 :lol

It's fascinating that Dutch is so easy to understand for a non-Dutch-speaking person. Me, being Swedish, can make out the meaning of most of the Dutch posts hear. Can you, dear Dutch speakers, do the same with Swedish, I wonder?

I would not think so... I never get past the 'Swedish Chef'.

But give a Swedish text, please. For instance: describe a BBs album without mentioning any title. We will try to work out which you mean, and on what grounds.

Tidenen av blod, dagar av makt, fädernas kall, skriker i mina ådror. Draget kallt stål, sjunger i mina händer, täjer forna dagar, deras stora glans. Faderna kall, skriker i mina ådror. Med höjda nordbanér genom särkastam, banar blodig väg i dödens namn. Ty dagar står åter då vårt tål vädras Tiden är dagad, då vi smeker ovärdig lekamen. Ty draget stål kallt som is, från nordan drar åter vi iväg. Med höjda banér genom särkastam, väcker allt som varit i mitt vreda sinne. Urgammalt blod fyller min kropp sjunger de gamlas sång i korpens skugga. Fädernas kall skriker i mina ådror. Ty draget stål kallt som is, från nordan drar åter vi. Tidenen av blod...

Not a BB-related thing in Swedish; this is actually a lyric from one of my favorite Swedish fantasy metal bands. I can't really detect a huge similarity to Dutch in this text. Presumably, if you were to compare Dutch to Norwegian, Danish, Icelandic, or Greenlandic you would get similar responses, although Greenlandic bears only the slightest resemblance to Danish, let alone Dutch. Swedish in some respects would have more in common with actual German as opposed to Dutch, despite all three being Germanic languages.

Den här skivan innehåller bara åtta spår, men dessa är i gengäld betydligt längre än den genomsnittliga Beach Boys-låten. Skivan är också väldigt demokratisk i det att nästan alla medlemmar bidrar med text eller musik till åtminstone någon låt. Spår tre är det enda som innehåller den person som ersatte Brian Wilson när denne slutade turnera åtta år tidigare.

Yes, Swedish should have more in common with German than Dutch, but I studied German for five years (and since then forgotten most), and I still find Dutch, which I haven’t studied at all, just as understandable as German.

Your Swedish example (from ONE of your favorite Swedish fantasy metal bands – you’ve got more? There are more??) is very archaic, a bit fragmented and contain some words and word order no normal person would use nowadays. I think it’s easier to understand things written about something which you already have knowledge about – see my example and let me know what you think – than poetry/lyrics.

"Ancient blood fills my body singing the song of the old ones in the shadow of the raven", indeed.   :-D

Ow this is hard. I promise I won't consult any dictionary. 'Genomslnittliga' = 'of the same name'? I only recognize 'demokratisk'... which reminds me of Sunflower, or Holland, perhaps L.A. Album. 'Ersatte' means: 'replacement of a lesser quality' (Ersatz in German)?

'Det enda' = 'the end'?

We will see...

Is 'skivan innehallar' indoor skating? Then it's 'Love You'?

Yeah, that makes sense.

The response you left above makes more sense when comparing it to Dutch. Granted, a song lyric was most likely not the best idea. The only phrase I know fully in Swedish (and also because it's one of my favorite movies) is "mitt liv som hund", so I was at a bit of a loss.

This does, however, open up a whole new can of worms. I've heard that the average Joe in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark can recognize all three respective languages by ear, despite, obviously, two of the three not being their native language. Then of course you have Icelandic and Greenlandic. And I've heard of a dialect, if you will, of Swedish that is spoken in parts of Finland by a group of Swedish-origin folks who live there. Is it really that easy for a regular Scandinavian to recognize each of the three main languages by ear, as well as possibly Icelandic and Greenlandic?

Dank u wel mr Boyd. Nooit geweten dat u zo goed nederlands kon schrijven  ;D

south african (old dutch):

Op 'n mooi glas kan ek ure luister na die beach boys. Lekker flesje Heineken daar by en uitsig op 'n mooie dame.

Hoop net word daar weer vinnig 'n dubbel CD box vrygestel, wat deur die beste produsent, mr Alan Boyd, is saam gestel.

Die beste wense en 'n gelukkige nuwe jaar

 :lol ::) ;D

Do you by ”recognize” mean only differ between the two and know which is which, then yes, certainly - but I guess you mean if we understand the other languages as well. And we do, but Danish can be a bit incomprehensible in that it’s so guttural (is that how it’s spelled?). Norwegian is easier to understand for a Swede, and once you’re used to it it really isn’t hard at all.

Greenlandic is actually an inuit language with Danish loan words if I’m not mistaken, so that’s another language family altogether. Icelandic, along with Faroese, spoken in the Faroe Islands, are much closer to the common language spoken in the Nordic countries about a thousand years ago, and have evolved in another direction than Swedish, Danish and Norwegian all since the colonization of the those islands long ago, so we do not understand that (except for the single word or two) when spoken. However, if you want to make it a bit more complicated, than add älvdalska, a dialect that some consider a language of its own, which is spoken by a few hundred in a remote area of Dalecarlia (Dalarna), Sweden. IIRC it has MORE in common with Icelandic (and/or old Norse) than Swedish…

The Swedish dialect spoken in Finland is indeed a dialect among other Swedish dialects – its influences from Finnish only go as far as the melody.

Hey, this is fun! Now it’s my turn: how much do Flemish, Dutch and… what’s it called, Frisish?? differ and have in common?

Can mr Boyd shat some light on this ?

translated to dutch:
Kan de heer Boyd SHAT enig licht op deze?

 :lol haha i need to pee my pants with laughter, and especially when I read this translation haha

Okay, I couldn't leave this alone. To prove how bad these free translators are (and without speaking any Dutch myself) I took some of my usual gibberish in English:

"Elephants do not wear hats because their feet are too tight. Never trust an oyster with two tacos and a banjo. Unexplained events are often useful in helping to solve mysteries."

With Yahoo! Babelfish translated into Dutch:

"De olifanten dragen geen hoeden omdat hun voeten te strak zijn. Vertrouw nooit op een oester met twee taco's en een banjo. De onverklaarde gebeurtenissen zijn vaak nuttig in het helpen om geheimen op te lossen."

And then back into English:

"The elephants carry no charges because their feet are too tight. Trust never an oyster with two taco' s and a banjo. The unexplained events are frequently useful in helping to solve mysteries."

Actually, that's not too far off... Okay, how about a poem of mine:

"Mary had a little leg
It's sores were red and green
And everywhere her colon goes
Her foot pertrudes between

It followed her to the grave one day
It was beside the pool
And every time it kicked the cop
It bounced across the mule

While on my way through clear blue skies
I stopped and ordered a shake with fries
I noticed something in my shorts
And this verse really doesn't belong with the rest of this. First of all it doesn't rhyme. I think I'll delete this end bit..... "

Into Dutch (without spaces):

"Mary had een klein been It' s pijnlijke plekken waren rood en groen En overal gaat haar dubbelpunt Haar voet pertrudes tussen Het volgde haar aan ernstige op een dag Het was naast de pool En telkens als het cop schopte Het stuiterde over de muilezel Terwijl op mijn manier door duidelijke blauwe hemelen Ik hield en gaf opdracht tot een schok met gebraden gerechten tegen Ik merkte iets in mijn borrels op En dit vers werkelijk doesn' t behoort tot de rest van dit. Eerst en vooral het doesn' t rijm. Ik denk I' ll schrapping dit eindbeetje ..... "

And back to English:

"Mary had a small leg It' s painful spots were red and green and everywhere concern its dubbelpunt its foot pertrudes between it followed her to serious on a day it were beside the pole and each time it kicked COP it played at marbles the muilezel whereas in my manner by clear blue hemelen I kept and commissioned to a bump with roasted Courts against I noticed something in my borrels and this fresh real doesn' t belongs up to the rest of this. Firstly and especially it doesn' t rhyme. I think I' ll cancellation this end smattering ....."

Hmmmm.... How about another poem of mine in English:

"Twas the night before Thursday and outside the door
Not a wookie was stirring, not even a whore
Upstairs in the attic and bleeding in bed
With visions of Nixon who's long since been dead
For those who feel super or those with frost bite
Mary's anus for all and for all a gun fight!"

Into Dutch (again without spaces):

"Twas de nacht vóór Donderdag en buiten de deur niet een wookie bewoog, niet zelfs whore Boven in de zolder en het aftappen in bed Met visies van Nixon who' s sinds lang dood voor hen die of die met vorstbeet Mary' super voelen; s anussen voor allen en voor allen een kanonstrijd!"

Back into English:

"Twas the night by Thursday and outside the door not wookie moved, not even whore in the attic and drawing off in bed with visions of Nixon who' s since long dead for them that or that with vorstbeet Mary' super feels; s anuses for all and for all a gun fight!"

Final conclusion: these free on-line translators are not worth a damn. But my poems are kind of funny.

Hm... Dutch expessions don't do well when Google translates them...  

Correctly translated: I'm about to wet my pants from laughing, especially when I read this translation


And why am I even trying to correct this at all?    :p

You get extra points for creativity!  ;D Well, “innehallar” could very well mean indoor skating rinks, but not “innehåller” which is a verb… “Ersatte” as “replacement of a lesser quality” made me laugh out loud, not because it’s especially wrong (just a slight difference in nuance) but for the meaning it would give that sentence… You’ll see later.

“Genomsnittliga” means “average” (lit. through-cut-ish!) while “det enda” is ”the only (one)”. Good guesses, though.

Hint: “spår” means “track” and “åtta” is a number.  ;)

I do understand German, but I don't understand a word of these Swedish texts. Might as well have been Chinese.

As someone said, the cognates make it quick and easy to decipher ::)  .....only and only if you have some exposure and training in the other language.


Clairol introduced the "Mist Stick," a curling iron, into Germany only to find out that "mist" is slang for manure.  Not too many people had use for the "Manure Stick."

There once was a model of the car Honda called Honda Fitta, where the last word, in Swedish, is a dirty word for the female genitals. The car was never imported to Sweden.

here is how Help me Rhonda sounds in dutch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C45Q4X68bEs

I miss the days when you'd only need a little hungarian phrase book.  ;D

I knew there would be an inevitable Python reference in this thread.

"Do you want...do you WANT to come back to my place? Bouncy bouncy!"

"My hovercraft is full of eels."
"I will not buy this record. It is scratched."
"My nipples explode with delight!"

"What's all this then?"
"You have beautiful thighs."
"What?!?"
"He hit me!"
"Drop your panties, Sir William, I cannot wait 'till lunchtime!"
"Right!"
"My nipples explode with delight!"

WHAT?

A hotdogmilkshaken requires a bit of effort.

It was supposed to be "clam juice hot dog milkshake" but it got lost in the translation.

@Fall Breaks -

Den här skivan innehåller bara åtta spår, men dessa är i gengäld betydligt längre än den genomsnittliga Beach Boys-låten. Skivan är också väldigt demokratisk i det att nästan alla medlemmar bidrar med text eller musik till åtminstone någon låt. Spår tre är det enda som innehåller den person som ersatte Brian Wilson när denne slutade turnera åtta år tidigare.

Next attempt:

This here disk ('skivan' might be the Dutch 'schijf', which is a platter) contains ('innehallar' = Swedish equivalent for German 'beinhaltet'?) ?? tracks, and as such it appeals to the average Beach Boys fan(?). The platter is obviously (ocksa = clearly?) made (valdigt = the Dutch 'vervaardigd'?) in a democratic fashion, in that all members ('medlemmar' = equivalent of German 'Mitglieder'?) contributed ('bidrar' = equivalent for Dutch 'bijgedragen hebben'?) with text and music ..............?? (don't get that phrase). Track three ('tre' = 3?) at the end? contains a person (?) who resembles Brina Wilson after ('nar' = equivalent for Dutch 'na'?) his ('denne' = his?) turn ('turnera'??) to drugs (?)

As promised, I worke only with your texts. Time for a very small hint? It might be the 1986 'Beach Boys' album...

Oh yes, BTW: I dearly love this thread. May it run for some time... :lol

Now where getting somewhere! But did you miss the hint I gave you, the one saying that “åtta” is a number and “det enda” means “the only (one)” and not “the end”?

And let me change the number for what I called track three in the last sentence – it should be track four. My mistake. But look at all the similarities: “skivan” is indeed a disc/record/platter, “innehåller” is “contains”, “medlemmar” is “members” and “bidrar” is “contributes”. And you were (almost) right about “ersatte” as well. :)

More hints: “gengäld” might mean “compensation”, “också” means “also” or “as well”, “låt” is “song” and “åtminstone” is “at least”

Good luck!  ;D

the Sunkist album?....  ;D


(I think you meant the '85 album)

'86 could also refer to Made In USA.

Could someone translate what Mr. Boyd said, or would that defeat the droll inscrutability of this cherished thread? ???
(Hey, I rhymed!).

No we won't, as the new releases and box sets will come out in Holland only.

try Google Translator or Yahoo's Babel Fish (that's what mr. Boyd used as well to get it translated in Dutch...)

Remember 1972 Braambrugge  :smokin :lol

Yeah mon! Irie! The Battle of Baambrugge! Right there at Joke's Koeienverhuurbedrijf and Uncle Pi's Cabin...

(...blood was spilled... studios and tapes were burned... Dennis got an orgasm...)

But we did it!

OK, I speak fluent German (albeit as a non-native speaker) and can usually read Dutch (but can't understand it at all when it's spoken, as it sounds totally different), and I have to admit, the Swedish looked utterly incomprehensible to me at first. But tease at it a little and you do start to see some of the cognates and words that are familiar. The problem is that the word order is occasionally different, and that even where there is a close equivalent word in a related language, that word is often not the one you'd use in a modern rendering of the same sentence. For example, the German word 'Zwehle' is a cognate to the English word 'towel', but 'eine Zwehle' is now a very old-fashioned word used mainly in dialects, meaning a rough fabric cloth, tablecloth, or even a devotional cloth used in religious ceremonies. The modern German word for towel, by the way, just in case you should ever need it, is 'Handtuch' or 'hand-cloth'. After all, everyone should know where his Handtuch is... ;)

OK, enough on meaning change between languages, or 'semantic drift', as linguists love to call it. Back to the Scandanavian BB album review.

"Den här skivan innehåller bara åtta spår, men dessa är i gengäld betydligt längre än den genomsnittliga Beach Boys-låten. Skivan är också väldigt demokratisk i det att nästan alla medlemmar bidrar med text eller musik till åtminstone någon låt. Spår tre är det enda som innehåller den person som ersatte Brian Wilson när denne slutade turnera åtta år tidigare."

OK, so...

"Den här skivan innehåller bara åtta spår..."

I'm going to guess is, "This here disc contains just (or 'a mere') eight tracks...".

"Skivan" is, as has already been said, like the Dutch 'Schijf' and the German 'Scheibe' or disk, and I'm going to hazard a guess that 'bara' is like English 'barely', although we wouldn't use that word there. "åtta" (pronounced 'orta', I think? 'a's with a circle over them are pronounced 'or' in Norwegian, I think...) must be like German 'acht' and English 'eight'. I don't know for sure, but that's my guess. And 'spår' is track - written and pronounced very like the German 'Spur' and Dutch 'Spoor'.

"This here disc" sounds dialectical in English, but I suppose you would simply write "This disc" or (if the writing was supposed to be posh or elevated in style) "The disc under discussion" to get the register of the writing correct (in other words, how elevated or slangy it sounds).

So, if I've got the number right, the riddle is solved — the album has to be Carl & The Passions, as nothing else by the Beach Boys has just eight tracks! But that's not the end of the fun, of course. Let's continue.

"...men dessa är i gengäld betydligt längre än den genomsnittliga Beach Boys-låten."

I don't know what 'men' means, but perhaps it will become clear from the context of the rest of the clause. 'Dessa' I would guess is 'these', like German 'diese' and also like the English, and "är" I happen to know is 'are' from visiting Norway. I'd guess it's the same in Swedish, as the two are so closely related, and parts of the verb 'to be', being some of the most regularly used words in any language, are often the parts that change least as languages drift and separate. This isn't always true, of course, as some parts of the verb 'to be' are often replaced with words from different verb stems. So German 'ist' is like English 'is', and Norwegian 'är' is like English 'are', but the German for 'are' is 'sind', which comes from a different root verb also meaning 'to be' — just as we say 'he goes' but 'he went' in the past, which comes from another verb altogether, 'to wend').

I'd never have got 'i gengäld', but Fall Breaks tells us this means something like 'compensation'. That makes sense to me: 'gen' is an old or poetic German word for 'against' (the modern word is 'gegen') and I'll guess that 'gäld' is 'money'. So 'gengäld' is 'compensation' or 'money that you get against or towards something (that has happened to you)'. I'll put all this together in a moment.

Moving on, an old English word for 'time' is 'tide' (which we now use in a different context, of course), like the Dutch 'tijd' and German 'Zeit'. I'm therefore going to guess that 'betydligt' means 'betimed', or simply 'timed' as we would write in modern English.

'längre' simply must be, from context, sound and spelling, like German 'länger' and English 'longer'.

Finally, ""...än den genomsnittliga Beach Boys-låten." "än den" is like German 'an den' or English 'on the', and Fall Breaks has told us that 'genomsnittliga' is 'average'. This is like the German word for average, 'durchschnittlich', which literally means 'what you get if you make a cut through the middle' (it literally means 'through-cut-ly'. '-snittliga' is very like '-schnittlich' here. And 'låten' is like 'Lieder' in German, which means 'song'. This has a cognate in German with the word 'Laut', which means either 'loud' or 'sound'. So a song in German is literally 'that which possesses loudness/sound'.

Putting it altogether, what have we got?

'This here disc contains just barely eight tracks, [SOMETHING] these are, as compensation, timed longer than the average Beach Boys songs'.

From this, I'd guess that 'men' means 'but' or 'however'.

That would give us, rendered into good colloquial English:

'This record has just eight tracks, but by way of compensation, each one is longer than the average Beach Boys song'.

It's GOT to be Carl and The Passions - So Tough.

I'll do the rest in a moment...

MattB

Um. The rest is kinda hard. But let's plough on...

"Skivan är också väldigt demokratisk i det att nästan alla medlemmar bidrar med text eller musik till åtminstone någon låt. Spår tre är det enda som innehåller den person som ersatte Brian Wilson när denne slutade turnera åtta år tidigare."

I can add a few bits to the first sentence. "Också" is like German 'Auch', meaning 'also'. 'demokratisk' is clearly 'democratic', and I'll hazard a guess that 'alla' is 'all', like German 'alle'. 'medlemmar' is members (as in of a band or club, like German 'Mitglieder') and 'bidrar' is 'contribute', like German 'beitragen', which literally means 'to with-carry', or put in better English 'to bring something with you [in the sense of bringing something with you to the table, a party, or a debate]'. And 'åtminstone' apparently means 'at least'. 'åt-' may be related to English 'at' here, and 'minstone' is similar to German 'mindeste', meaning 'least' or 'minus-est'! 'Med' is 'with', like German 'mit' and in English 'MIDwife', the person that sits WITH the wife [at a time when the wife most needs someone to sit with them...!]. And 'till' is 'to' or 'towards', a bit like 'until' in English, but the context is slightly different.

So from what we know so far, the first sentence here is:

"[The] disc is also [SOMETHING] democratic as [SOMETHING] [SOMETHING] [SOMETHING] [SOMETHING] all members contribute with text and music to at least [SOMETHING] song".

'väldigt' looks like a past tense to me. '-igt' seems to be like German '-t' on past participles (geschalte-t, gestell-t, geöffne-t), like English '-ed' (switch-ed, plac-ed, open-ed). The Heartical Don guessed this might be 'manufactured' or 'made'. I'm not sure, but I'll go with that. There is a word a bit like the Dutch one he mentioned in German, 'verfertigen', which means 'to produce (industrially)'. This literally means 'to make ready' and comes from the root word 'fertig', meaning 'ready'. This sounds a bit like 'väldig', but that could be a coincidence. Nonetheless, 'manufactured' 'produced' or 'made' would make sense in this context.

I don't think I'm going to get any more words in this sentence.

"i det att nästan"... I just don't know. 'nästen' could be 'next', like German 'nächste' and like the English word. I feel intuitively as though this part might mean 'like the next one', but I don't know how or why. And actually, that could make sense:

"The record is also made democratically: like the next one, all members contribute lyrics and music..." as the next Beach Boys album after CATP is Holland, and all the members also contributed to that lyrically and musically. But this is really guesswork...

I've no idea what 'någon' means. It might be like German 'noch eine', meaning 'another one' but how would that fit in here? Unless it's something like 'all members contribute lyrics and music to at least one other song'. But again, I'm guessing.

So here's a stab at the next complete sentence in good English. But there's more guesswork in this one than there was in the last sentence.

"This album, like the next one, is also something of a democratic effort: every member contributes lyrics and music to at least one song."

The last sentence is the hardest of all. So I'll come back to that shortly...

Matt, you probably don't want any feedback until you've finished everything, so let me just alert you on that last sentence. It should read:

"Spår tre fyra är det enda som innehåller den person som ersatte Brian Wilson när denne slutade turnera åtta år tidigare."

"Spår tre är det enda som innehåller den person som ersatte Brian Wilson när denne slutade turnera åtta år tidigare."

This is, as I said, really tough. I'm guessing the most and knowing the least in this sentence.

So, what DO we know for sure?

Well, 'spår' is track and 'är' is 'is'. And although this says 'track three', Fall Breaks tells us he actually meant to write 'Track 4'. 'det enda' is 'the only one'. 'innehåller' is something to do with 'containing' or 'holding' (maybe 'featuring'?). 'åtta', at the end of the sentence, is 'eight' again, I think. And 'år', I seem to recall from knowing what Happy New Year is in a lot of different languages, is 'year'. And 'tidigare'... I don't know, but that seems to have 'tid-' in it again, a root that means 'time'. So maybe a word that has a sense of time in it, like 'ago', or 'earlier' or something. Yes, this *is* a weak guess!

Put it together, and what have you got? Nothing that makes much sense, unfortunately...

"Track four is the only one [SOMETHING] contains?? the person [SOMETHING] replacement?? Brian Wilson [SOMETHING] [SOMETHING] [SOMETHING] [SOMETHING] eight years [time/timing/ago/earlier???]"

I'm not going to get any more by deduction, so I'm going to use guesswork based on context. Track four on CATP is, of course, 'Marcella', mainly written by Brian, and partly based on a section from the (then) unreleased 'All Dressed Up For School' from 1964... which, interestingly, was recorded eight years before CATP's release in 1972! 'ersatte' is apparently something to do with replacement... could it be 'irreplaceable'? 'när' could be 'near to' or 'similar to', and 'turnera'  might mean 'produced', like a craftsman that 'turns' a piece of wood, although that's utter guesswork. It could also mean 'turn' as in a 'number' or 'song'. Or indeed, almost anything else at all.

So now I'm going to go out on a limb here and go for:

"Track four is the only one featuring major contributions by the irreplaceable Brian Wilson, and is similar to a number he produced eight years earlier"

...or something like that.

OK, Fall Breaks... how'd I do?

MattB

OK, I admit it - I peeked! Having finished an attempt, I then used Google Translate!

And it goes to show where guesswork can take you... all that stuff I worked up for the last sentence about Marcella and All Dressed Up For School was a complete load of nonsense! So if anyone out there is still trying, my attempt at the last sentence is barking up COMPLETELY the wrong tree. The Don's guesses of 'to replace' or one of its tenses for 'ersatte' and 'after' for 'när' are much closer to the truth than what I came up with. And I really should have been able to take a guess at 'slutera'... no, it's not what an English speaker might think!!!! But think German 'schliessen', or Dutch 'sluiten', and you'll be on the right lines...

Looks like I did OK on the rest, though... ;)

MattB

I'll come back with comments etc tomorrow so Don (and/or others) can have a go at it as well!  :)

Is ábhar deas a bheith. Cheana féin 5 leathanaigh agus dul ar. WOW (irish)

Yo no hablo Neerlandés, Alemán, Sueco, o Noruego.

Esta foro tiena muchos pendejos Brianistas. :)

Dair gwaith bob penwythnos llenwiais i fy fflat gyda dreigiau twp.

What language is that???  ???

"Ik ben een homoseksuele Nederlander en ik wil dat je mijn teelballen te likken, want ik ben bloed plassen en scheten vuur." - Kasper Por
http://www.myspace.com/allesnieuwevenkijkenhoewe (http://www.myspace.com/allesnieuwevenkijkenhoewe)

Hahaha ik denk dat de vertaler niet helemaal goed werkt  :lol

Ik gebruik Google Translate eindelijk. Grappig, voegde ik een paar vrienden op mijn MySpace uit Nederland en ik gebruikte die laatste opmerking in mijn invites. Ze worden wel aanvaard. Misschien dat ik zal moeten de taal leren en bewegen daar. Ik ben erg geïnteresseerd in de hasj bars.

This is a superb thread. By its nature it could last forever... so many languages, and so much fun to play around with them, and with BBs-related stuff

Matt B.: I have to take a deep bow, even if you didn't get to the very end of the riddle. Your efforts are of a textbook clarity, and your powers to imagine common sounds and parts of words across multiple languages are very impressive. Are you a teacher?

I will try to work out the missing links in the next two hours or so.

Welsh! I studied it for a few month at my university.  :)

Is Aberysthwyth in Wales? I see it each morning on BBC's weather forecast...

Yep, it is.  :)

Unfortunately, I can't finish the 'Swedish Riddle' today. So, Matt L., feel free to complete the job... if it's still unsolved tomorrow, I'll make a new effort.

Meanwhile, here's a riddle of my own. Again: which Beach Boys album?

Album u bë një misterioze, sepse kjo është një hije e një projekti të madh, një projekt që ndoshta kulminacion përfundimtar të muzikës popullore mund të jetë. Jo se kjo është një punë e garniturë të dytë. Por është ... short ... që recensues juaj në kohë të mendonin se ai pësoi gripit të butë dhe gjithashtu pak hallucinating.
Kjo është edhe një pjatë të shkurtër, shumë e shkurtër, si më poshtë ore e gjysmë, e cila gjithashtu ka dy këngë hit janë të përfshira, dhe dy copa të tjera mund të përshkruhet si mbushëse.
Too bad. Dhe ende i padyshimtë Beach Boys, por jo të shëndosha shfletoj, as kamerpop elegante e albumit mëparshme. Mbulojnë të shquar, që përshkruan një vilë në pyje, e bën të gjitha edhe nëse nuk i njohur për të.
Sa duket anëtarët e grupit janë blowden me gëzim të lirshme kur ajo regjistroi albumin, thuhet në pishinë bosh e një udhëheqësi.
Këshilla: Së pari të dëgjojnë, dhe pastaj blejnë.

Albanian, right? Couldn't you've taken a language that at least has some close relative?  ;)

Let's see... the word "një" is used frequently and could mean "(is) not" since it's reminiscent of the Bosnian (Serbian, Croatian et c) nije with that meaning. "Misterioze" could very well be "masterpiece", but that's a guess (as well) :). "Kulminacion" is of course "culmination" and "muzikës popullore" "pop music", and if një is not than we're not talking about a masterpiece in pop music?. "Hallucinating" and, for some reason, "short", wasn't translated. So... Smiley Smile?  ;D

Deze lange spelen record werd opgetekend vier jaar na de vorige en was het een waar Brian kwam terug in productie. Het heeft vijftien nummers op en is meestal vreselijk. Het is het beste dit album los te slaan uit slechts een paar nummers. In feite sla ik het iedere keer speel ik de compact disc en ik ga naar de volgende.

Like the Don, I'm also loving this thread, but perhaps that's because it combines two of my personal favourite interests... the Beach Boys and languages...

I'm not a teacher (I'm a freelance technical writer), and I don't speak many languages (only two fluently; I wish it was more), but I've always been interested in them and the links between them and their historical development. I was born in and live in England, but have a very mixed heritage: eighth English, eighth Irish, quarter Italian and half Lithuanian (no, really!). My Grandfather spoke many languages fluently and I admired that as I grew up. I've learnt French, Spanish, Italian and German in my time, but only the German to fluency. But although I don't actually speak many languages, I've become fascinated by the fact that, for all their differences, most of the tongues and dialects in Europe are at least distantly related (with the exception of Finnish, Hungarian, Basque and Maltese, which come from completely different roots), and you can often see links if you look carefully and know something about the sound-shifts that have taken place through the centuries. Some of the languages are closely related, like Italian and Spanish, or Norwegian and Swedish, while other links are more distant (English to Russian, say, or Greek to Danish), but most of them are part of the same family tree, if on different branches, and there are common elements, which are often apparent in words which are very ancient and fundamental to human existence. So 'water', for example, which we all need to live: 'water' in Dutch and English, Gaelic 'uisce' or 'uisge' (pronounced 'weesher' or 'weezga') in Gaelic, 'Wasser' in German, and the 'vod-' bit in the Russian word 'vodka' comes from the same root (compare the 'wat-' bit in water with 'vod-' in 'vodka'). '-ka' on the end of something in Russian is a diminutive, meaning 'a small version', so vodka means 'little water', apparently for one of two reasons, one sensible, one funny: sensibly, because vodka has been distilled down to a concentrated form, and so can be said to be 'little water', and more amusingly, possibly because it was slang for people in the know, as in 'Fancy a drop of the old 'little water', then, know what I mean, nudge nudge?' Whisky, funnily enough, may have been named for similar reasons. Gaelic 'uisce beatha' (pronounced 'weesher veeta') was corrupted by Scots and English-speakers to 'whisky', but the original words mean 'water of life', and you can imagine some hardy peat crofters using this as slang in the wild Highlands of Scotland back in the day: 'Och, Angus, that'll be enough of the peat-cutting for today. I'm about ready for a drop of the water of life, ye ken?').

I digress, of course, as the water we're talking about here is not even of the Cool Cool variety. So to get back on topic...

I can certainly dispatch the final Swedish sentence on behalf of the Don, although I do feel I'm cheating a bit, as I didn't work this out for myself, as I admitted above. But I can usefully highlight some more connections in the languages as I do so, so here goes:

"Spår fyra är det enda som innehåller den person som ersatte Brian Wilson när denne slutade turnera åtta år tidigare."

I still haven't looked this up in any dictionary, but I assume from context that the word 'som' is a relative pronoun, translated in English as either 'that' or 'which'. 'När', it turns out, IS like Dutch 'naar' or German 'nach', but there's no similar equivalent in modern English: it means 'after'. And I think 'denne' is a demonstrative pronoun, translated in English by 'this/that one', or possibly 'he' or 'she', depending on context.  

'Slutade', I think, must come from a Germanic root meaning 'closing'. The word has cognates in Dutch and German ('sluiten' and 'schliessen' respectively) where it means to close or to lock (and Dutch 'sluitel' and German 'Schlüssel' mean 'key'), but that root has died out in modern English.

'Turnera' is also interesting, as I think it might be a so-called 'loan-word'. Sometimes, rather than evolving from common roots over hundreds of years, words are suddenly borrowed wholesale from other languages. Occasionally, there's a little adaptation or alteration so that the word reads or sounds more like a native word, but sometimes the borrowed word survives completely unchanged. There are zillions of examples of this: 'computer' from English is of course now used all around the world in hundreds of languages. English has also borrowed many terms from other languages that are now considered everyday English, like 'opera' (Latin for 'work'), bus (from 'omnibus', a Latin word in the Dative case meaning 'for the benefit of everyone'), 'rucksack' and 'kindergarten' from the German words for 'backpack' and 'child's garden' (ie. nursery) and 'bungalow' and 'pyjama' (from an Indian language, I forget which, possibly Hindi). Thanks to these so-called 'loan-words', I can occasionally read the odd word in Finnish, even though I know no Finnish at all and it is derived from a totally different family than most other European languages. The reason is that for much of Finland's history, the country was culturally dominated by the Swedish (not with the agreement of the Finns, I might add...). So, many words in Finnish were borrowed from Swedish during this time — and because Swedish IS closely related historically to German and English, I can figure them out occasionally. Anyway, to return (once again, sorry) to topic, the French word 'tournée' means 'a little turn' and has come to mean a tour (such as of a circus, of aristocratic nobility on holiday, or, of course, of a band or group). Our word 'tour' comes from the same place, with a slight alteration to make it look more English and less French. The Germans use 'Tournée' completely unaltered to mean the same thing. And I suspect 'turnera' in Swedish is the same.

So what have we got?

"Spår fyra är det enda som innehåller den person som ersatte Brian Wilson när denne slutade turnera åtta år tidigare."

"Track four is the only one that/which contains/features the person that/which replaced Brian Wilson after that one/he closed touring eight years earlier."

Or, in proper colloquial English, "Track four is the only one that features the person that replaced Brian Wilson after he finished touring eight years earlier." Marcella, of course, is supposedly the only track on Carl and The Passions to feature a vocal contribution from Bruce Johnston. However, I think the maths is off - didn't Bruce start touring in Brian's stead in *1965*, only SEVEN years before Carl and The Passions came out?

Anyway, there you go.

I'm not going into the same kind of detail over the first sentence of rogerlancelot's Dutch example above, as I can read the first sentence without any trouble from knowing German, and have figured out what the album is, so I'll leave this for others. I can drop some hints, though: 'opgetekend' must mean 'recorded', literally (I think) 'engraved': 'teken' is related to the English verb 'to sign' and German 'zeichnen' which means to draw, engrave or inscribe. 'Aufzeichnen' the modern German cognate to Dutch 'opteken' means 'to draw or write on something', which of course is what you do on recording tape: you could say that you 'write' a performance onto it, although ironically modern German doesn't use this word for audio recording. Dutch, though, does, clearly: you 'engrave' your recording. The 'op' bit on the front is like the German 'auf' and the English 'up', although we don't always use our word 'up' any more where the Dutch and Germans use 'op' or 'auf'. Here, perhaps, we might: 'opteken' literally means 'to write (up)'. 'opgetekened' is the past tense, so not 'record', but 'recorded'.

'vorige' is the same in German: 'Vorige'. It's connected to the English root '-fore' (as in 'before') and means 'the fore-running'. However, in modern English, we'd translate the word in this context with one from a Latin root, strangely enough: 'previous'. The Latin prefix 'Pre-' in 'previous', is actually related to the 'vor' in the German words, but more distantly, further back in history. 'F' sounds in one language often become 'p' sounds in another over time: compare Latin 'pater' to German 'Vater' and English 'father'.

'Terug' is related to German 'zurück': German 'z's and 's's are often Dutch and English 't's. The '-rug' and '-rück' in the Dutch and English mean 'back'. So this word means 'to back', or as we would now say, simply 'back', or, in some contexts, 'backwards'. There is a word that survives in modern English from the same root as '-rug' and '-rück', but we wouldn't use it in this context in modern English: it is 'ridge', which originally meant 'back' in old English, then became more restricted in meaning to mean just the back of the body or your spine (as modern 'back' still can, as in 'my back's playing me up something rotten, Harold'), and finally came to mean 'spine-like parts of a mountain range' as 'ridge' does today. If that meaning change hadn't happened, we might still be able to say in English 'all ridge to my place!!!!' or 'Ridge to the future'! Or, indeed, 'my ridge is playing me up something rotten, Harold'.

Despite these bits seeming familiar, there are plenty of words in the Dutch that I can only guess at, despite knowing English and German, which goes to show how even closely related languages can differ enough to cause confusion. "meestal freselijk" must mean 'mostly [something]', but I can't tell whether the word means the album is good or bad! I'm guessing it means bad from the next sentence, which is fine by me as I think this record is mostly schlock, too!

I am very lost by the second half, though. "Het is het beste dit album los te slaan uit slechts een paar nummers. In feite sla ik het iedere keer speel ik de compact disc en ik ga naar de volgende."

Het is (I think) both 'it' and 'the' in Dutch. 'dit' is a pronoun like German 'diese', or English 'this' or 'that'. 'Beste' is 'best' (easy) and 'los' ism, in both Dutch and German 'loose', which is very close to the English, too.  'Slaan' is, I would guess, like German 'schleien' and the related-but-not-exactly-the-same English word 'to sling'. In German, the 'los-' (loose) in 'losschleien', 'to sling loose', is used to intensify the meaning of 'schleien', to 'sling', and I would guess it's the same in Dutch: so 'losschleien' means 'to sling right out'. I'll come back to this.

'Uit' (sort of pronounced 'aye-t') is the equivalent of English 'out', and in fact the Royal Family and posh people here in England still prounouce this word like the Dutch! I've no idea about 'slechts', but I would guess it means something like 'with the exception of' or 'apart from'. 'nummer' is 'number' as in a musical number, or song, and 'een paar' must be like the German 'ein paar', which literally means 'a pair', but is often used just like we use 'a couple' (same meaning, actually) to mean 'a few, a small number of (a larger selection)'. So that would give us

"It is the best this album loose to sling out except for a couple of numbers"

This is, of course, complete gibberish, but once you realise that word order in Dutch and German is completely different to English, you can rearrange it to make the following sentence, which is much more comprehensible:

"It is the best to sling this album right out except for a couple of numbers".

And finally, you can easily turn this into good modern colloquial English:

"It's best to toss this album completely except for a couple of numbers".

Or: 'Most of this album is completely dispensible apart from a couple of tracks'.

I can't get the last sentence, though. "In feite sla ik het iedere keer speel ik de compact disc en ik ga naar de volgende." I've no idea what 'In feite' or 'keer' means.

'Speel', though, is like German 'spielen', to play (there's no longer any related word in modern English).

"Ik ga" is, I think, like German 'Ich gehe' and English "I go".

and 'naar de folgende' is like German 'nach der folgenden'. 'naar/nach' is 'to' or 'towards'. And 'Folgend' is like the English 'following' (we swallowed the 'g' in the middle of the word in the Middle Ages, and it became a 'w'). So 'naar de folgende' is 'to the following (one)'.

That gives: "[SOMETHING] [SOMETHING] sling I the [SOMETHING] [SOMETHING] play the CD and I go to the following one".

I'm going to guess, from context, that the whole of the last part is something like:

"Most of this album is completely dispensible apart from a couple of tracks. In truth, I skip most of them when playing the CD and go on to the next album".

Knowing what the album is, I sympathise. I'd rather hear the following one, too!

Now... this here Albanian...

MattB

I can do MUCH less with the Albanian. Although my ancestors were Lithuanian slavs, none of it has come down to me (my grandmother was the last one in the family to speak or understand any Lithuanian), and I haven't learnt any Slavic languages, more's the pity. Also, Slavic languages, although related to Latin and Germanic languages, are more distantly connected than either of those. And finally, Albanian is thought be a bit of an odd one out amongst the Slavic languages anyway.

So, in short, the languages I know aren't much use here. All I can do is spot the odd word or phrase that is related to things I do know. As with the example in my last post of scanning Finnish for Swedish loan-words, there are a few here that are clearly loan-words from other tongues I CAN read. For example, 'misterioze', I would think, is probably 'mysterious'. 'kulminacion' has got to be 'culmination'. 'muzikës popullore mund', I would guess, is 'popular music of the world', as  'mund', or words like it (French 'monde', Italian 'mondo', Spanish 'Mundo' and Latin 'Mundi') mean 'world' in a lot of languages. Similarly, 'Projekti' is obviously 'project'.

And 'kamerpop elegante', I would guess, is 'elegant chamber pop' ('Kammer' is 'chamber' in German, as in 'Kammermusik' or 'chamber music'). And chamber pop is stuff like The Left Banke: rock with strings and harpsichords that was popular in the mid-60s, roughly 1965-67. It was sometimes facetiously called 'baroque and roll'...

So I think, in terms of the Beach Boys here, we have to be talking about Pet Sounds, as it's the only album that could really be called 'chamber pop' in the BB's history, I think.

But wait!! I could hazard a guess that 'është' might mean 'is' and that 'bë' might mean 'be' or a part of the verb 'to be', like 'is', as the parts of the verb 'to be' are often similar in many European languages, as I've already said earlier in this thread. But that is a TOTAL guess and I might be completely wrong.

If so, that MIGHT mean that the first sentence begins 'this album is mysterious...' and the third paragraph begins (completely guessing again) "Too bad. The end of the Beach Boys, something something elegant Chamber Pop". Together with the reference to short-ness (and could the word 'shkurtër' mean shorter? or is that too much of a reach?), I think we might be looking at Smiley Smile here. Or, given the first bit about the album being mysterious and the couple of sprinkled references to a 'project', maybe even the cancelled Beach Boys SMiLE itself. Maybe it's saying that SMiLE (or Smiley Smile) marked the end of the Beach Boys' elegant chamber pop...?

I'm going to take a leap into the dark and plump for the cancelled SMiLE here.

[Hits 'Post', and wanders off to find an on-line translator of Albanian].

Wrong again!!! Guessing is clearly not my strong point. And some of the stuff (like 'mund' possibly meaning 'world') was completely incorrect. But overall, I was close...

MattB

And on the Dutch... I should have got 'In feite' and 'keer'. 'Feite' is like the German 'Fakt' and English 'fact', and 'keer' is to do with 'what comes around' (German 'kehren' is 'to come [around]'). It seems it means 'time' or 'times'. (I guess because time is what comes around).

And 'iedere' was a steal I shoulda had, too... it's like German 'jeder', and pronounced the same too ('yay-der'). It means 'each' or 'every'.

So: "In feite sla ik het iedere keer speel ik de compact disc en ik ga naar de volgende"

is "In fact, sling I it every time play I the CD and I go to the following one"

or

"In fact, I skip it every time I play the CD, and go on to the next album instead".

D'oh!

MattB

I have a strong suspicion that this text was translated from another language. The structure of these sentences aren't correct in the Dutch language. And of a few sentences I'm not even sure what the author exactly wanted to say.

O, and Matt: despite of the inaccuracies in abovementioned text, you're translation of the last sentence is pretty much spot-on.

...is a perfectly good guess!!!

BTW: the penultimate sentence contains the verb: 'blowden'. The machine decided to not really translate my word, but to simply insert it. Did no one notice?

At any rate, indeed: 'hallucinating' and 'short' are real hints too.

To Matt Bielewicz: you made a tremendous contribution. I simply lack the time to read it in detail now, will make up for it tomorrow.

Matt, I bow to your deduction ability and knowledge of languages! Yes, you're right about Bruce coming aboard in 1965. I thought of Brian's breakdown on that plane in late '64 as when he stopped touring, but of course that doesn't bring Bruce aboard earlier… Sorry!

I can only bring about some small corrections to your translation: 'när' means 'when' and not 'after' (which would be 'efter'), but in this case both words work. 'Slutade' is indeed related to 'closed' but means 'stopped', 'quitted' or 'ceased'. 'Closed' and 'stopped' is the same in the present tense ('sluta') but is ... conjugated, is that the English word when it comes to verbs? ... as 'sluta, slutade, slutat' when meaning '(to)stop' and 'sluta, slöt, slutit' (i.e. irregular) when it comes to '(to) close'.

'Den här skivan' is indeed 'This here disc' literally, but is not dialectical in Swedish and corresponds with 'denna skiva' which means the same. 'Denna', btw, is used when the noun is neuter or feminine - 'skiva' being feminine - while 'denne' is masculine. (In spoken Swedish 'denna' can be heard for masculine words as well.)

'Betydligt' has nothing to do with time, though. Here 'considerably' would probably be the best translation. Something is 'tydligt' when it's clear, detailed and unambiguous (which is a wonderful word imo!). ‘Väldigt’ is not past tense but instead an adverb, meaning ‘very’, or literally ‘hugely’. And I do not refer to the Holland album; instead ‘i det att nästan…’ means ‘in that almost…’ which Don almost figured out. So the sentence would read ‘The record is also very democratic in that almost all members [only sans Bruce, right?] contribute lyrics and music to at least some song’. So ‘någon’ means ‘any’ or ‘some’. Could it be related to ‘einige’, perhaps?

All in all, great work, Matt! I learned a lot!  :)