***** Damn near impossible

Guest Post: 牛仔很忙 (Niuzai Hen Mang) by 周杰倫 (Zhou Jie Lun/Jay Chou)

March 23, 2009 at 1:35 pm (***** Damn near impossible, Chinese lyrics, Guest Posts, Male Singers, Pinyin lyrics, Taiwanese) (Jay Chou, Zhou Jie Lun, 周杰倫)

Another guest post by Anna, with apologies to her for taking so long to get this up. I’ll be using this post to learn the song myself, as I see it as the Mt. Everest of Chinese songs and am determined to conquer it someday. In line with that, I’ve added a new level of difficulty: “Damn near impossible.” Here’s Anna’s advice on how to master this song:

Jay Chou never smiles, but this song (and its music video) shows that he does have a sense of humor. At first I didn’t believe it was even possible to sing this song in karaoke, but then I heard a friend of a friend sing it, and thought: if he can do it, then I can learn it too; I’ll be the first foreigner to master this song, and much admiration will be my part. But by the time I did master it, it didn’t seem such an amazing feat anymore.

The key here is knowing the song by heart. There’s no time to read the characters as they appear on the screen, the speed is just too high, you have to know what’s coming before Jay sings it. The other key is to pronounce only half of most of the words, just slur everything together like Jay does, otherwise there’s just no way you can sing fast enough.

There’s one line of Taiwanese in it, I’ll romanize it in POJ. And there’s a Taiwanese accent: Jay pronounces 日記 riji with an L, producing something like lh-ji.

And here’s the video. Watch the instrumental part in the middle: I’ve worn exactly such a dress. Twice in my life. On fairs held in Taipei to promote Dutch education and Dutch flowers, respectively. On these occasions, I borrowed a dress from the Dutch representative office, and I suspect that’s where the costume designer of this video got them, too.

嗚啦啦啦火車笛
Wu la la la huoche di

隨著奔騰的馬蹄
Suizhe benteng de madi

小妹妹吹著口琴
Xiao meimei chui zhe kouqin

夕陽下美了剪影
Xiyang xia mei le jian ying

我用子彈寫日記
Wo yong zidan xie riji

介紹完了風景
Jieshao wan le fengjing

接下來換介紹我自己
Jie xia lai huan jieshao wo ziji

我雖然是個牛仔
Wo suiran shi ge niuzai

在酒吧只點牛奶
Zai jiuba zhi dian niunai

為什麼不喝啤酒
Weishenme bu he pijiu

因為啤酒傷身體
Yinwei pijiu shang shenti

很多人不長眼睛
Hen duo ren bu zhang yanjing

囂張都靠武器
Xiaozhang dou kao wuqi

赤手空拳就縮成螞蟻
Chi shou kong quan jiu suo cheng mayi

Chorus

不用麻煩了不用麻煩了
Bu yong mafan le bu yong mafan le

不用麻煩不用麻煩了不用麻煩了
Bu yong mafan bu yong mafan le bu yong mafan le

你們一起上
Nimen yiqi shang

我在趕時間
Wo zai gan shijian

每天決鬥觀眾都累了
Meitian juedou guanzhong dou lei le

英雄也累了
Yingxiong ye lei le

不用麻煩了不用麻煩了
Bu yong mafan le bu yong mafan le

副歌不長你們有幾個
Fu ge bu chang nimen you ji ge

一起上好了
Yiqi shang hao le

正義呼喚我
Zhengyi huhuan wo

美女需要我
Meinü xuyao wo

牛仔很忙的
Niuzai hen mang de

(心愛ㄟ妳走去叨位我那ㄟ攏沒看到妳)
(Sim-ai-e, chau-khi to-ui, goa na-e long be khoann-kau li)