de profundis

[Julian.West@mac.dartmouth.edu]

Meredith Tarr writes:

> I guess KT does speak French rather than German, but I think it's neat that
> she's chosen to put some phrases auf deutsch in her songs.  That particular
> phrase, at the end of the _Ninth Wave_, is especially powerful: "The
depths,the
> depths, somewhere in the depths there is a light."  

> Never mind the language- the woman can write!!!

That raises a good question: just why would someone who
doesn't speak good German include a German phrase in her
song? (I always thought this was spoken in Kate's voice,
but did someone say recently that it wasn't?) 
Some suggestions:

(1) She liked the sound of the words. Well, they certainly
do sound good, but if she doesn't speak German how would
she have known?

(2) She decided to render a phrase into German because to
be obscurantist.

(3) She thought that phrase belonged in German because it
has certain German connotations, at least for her.

Thus the Rhinemaidens:

Die Weckerin lacht in den Grund.
...er la:chelt in lichtem Schein
...durch die Fluten hin fliesst sein strahlender Stern.

The waking sun laughs in the depths
...he smiles in the shining light
...his radiant rays flood through the waters around.

(4) There is actually a German source for the line.
Kate might have stumbled across it in her reading, or 
found it while doing research for _The Ninth Wave_.

Have possibilities (3) and (4) been seriously discussed
in Love-hounds before?

Julian
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The movie plays and plays
the screen before me fills
the dream I long to find
the movie in my mind      -- Alain Boublil, Miss Saigon
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