Versions

How I prepared for each of the versions

Every time I found a new lyricist who was willing to try to do a version of Work of Art, I would start preparing to sing in that language right away. The process of being able to hear and make different sounds is pretty long and I wanted to let those sounds into my heart as much as possible.

I would search on the internet “pop song Hebrew”, for instance, and find an artist. Then I would look up that artist on youtube and find a video of a song I liked. After that, I would try to find the lyrics of that song in Roman alphabet which was not always possible. If I couldn´t find lyrics to a song in Roman alphabet, I would start my search all over again.

Once I had an artist, a song and the lyrics, I would start watching the video non-stop and I would make very personal pronunciation notes. Certain sounds resembled more the Japanese language so I made notes in “hiragana” (a Japanese phonetic alphabet). Others sounded more like Portuguese or English and I would make the notes accordingly. I would listen and sing out loud as my lips and tongue had to get used to making those sounds. At first, every language seemed impossible but after a while they would grow on me and become more and more familiar.

In addition to working with an existing pop song in each of the languages, I also counted on the help of the lyricists. I met some of them in person but I only had virtual encounters with most of them since they live around the globe. In these meetings, I would record them reading the lyrics at a natural speed, at a very slow speed and then I would ask them to sing the song for me. Getting some of them to sing for me was the funniest part because not everyone can sing and that was when I got to see them in a real vulnerable situation. It was really funny and some of these recordings are really dear to me because I can hear how hard they were trying.