'It's like Prison Break. With beavers.' by Kara
Thursday, May 21, 2009 at 10:16 AM

Apparently got something new coming in at work that's gonna rearrange half my work day. Could be good, could be fearsome. But hell, it'll be interesting, and most of the time I like interesting. Even if it's fearsome.

Okay, so there is something going on in Karaworld at last.

My career as a lyricist has begun.

(And when I say 'begun,' I mean 'has happened once and may likely never happen again.')

Short version: a friend of ours is producing a show in London called Unidentified Floating Object. Basically, it's a cabaret-style presentation of songs from cult/sci-fi/fantasy musicals. Think Rocky Horror, Barbarella ... okay, no, getting ahead of myself, but there is a Barbarella musical. It's just it was in German.

So that's where I come in.

There are a few German-language songs in the mix. Rather than our producer friend deciding to make his English-speaking singers do it in the original language, he chose instead to do new translations. Now, he speaks German; that's no biggie. He's done translations for the aforementioned show, Dance of the Vampire, and a couple others in his time, and he knows them backwards and forwards. I, at the very most, know one or two of them forwards.

A bit back, he sent me lyrics and music for two songs from Barbarella and one from Dance of the Vampire, with the request 'please make these singable.' Well, Barbarella was sorted. He'd done a fine job of those, and I think the change I sent back for one of the two songs consisted of three words. (I didn't touch the other.)

The one from Dance ... was a five-minute monster. I'd sit and stare at it every day, with its big bulky translation and its big bulky German words and its bigness and bulkiness and wonder what the arse I was going to do with it. I'm not sure what finally clicked for me, but the other day I got the damned lyrics figured out and sent back a singable version.

I didn't know 'til about five minutes ago that what I was adapting was not a rough translation, but rather the translation written for the Broadway version of the show. And I was told mine was better. I'm flattered ... I'd be more flattered if I didn't know for a fact that the Broadway version was crap.

So yeah ... being credited as a lyricist for this show. I'm really glad to have gotten the opportunity even though I was a bit of a dick about the deadline (what with all I had going on, as you recall). I'm a bit proud to know that this is something else I can add to the list of things I've done in my life.

If you plan to be in London on the 21st of June, hie thee to it. And e-mail the Minmay Theatre Co. for more information.

Yeah. You heard me.

If you have been, it's cute ...