Saturday, March 26, 2005

Meet the Chinese Beatles



I found this great Beatles' album cover at Tony Fletcher's iJamming. There are two interesting details I should point out:

1. Notice all the band member's eyes? They have been changed to make them look more "Asianized" (and in John Lennon's case, more stoned).

2. The phonetic translation of the band name "beatles", actually means "diheveled hair" in Chinese.

= diheveled hair (often referring to an untidy woman)

I wonder if their songs have been changed too. Perhaps to fit the Asian stereotype, and replaced all "L" with "R" sound or vice versa, just like in the movie Team American World Police.

Personally I would love to hear these classics:

"R"ove Me Do
She "R"oves You
Can't Buy Me "R"ove
Ticket to "L"ide
E"R"eanor "L"igby
Penny "R"ane
All You Need Is "R"ove
"R"ady Madonna
"R"et It Be
The "R"ong and Winding "L"oad
Ob-"R"a-Di, Ob-"R"a-Da
Ju"R"ia
"R"ong, "R"ong, "R"ong
"L"evo"R"ution

and last but not least:

Sgt. Pepper's "R"one"R"y Hearts C"R"ub Band

9 comments:

  1. I'd love to own one of these records, but have never ever seen any...any tips?

    ReplyDelete
  2. I once had a copy of "sgt. peebubs loney harps club band". no idea why it ended up being titled as such, since otherwise the graphic was exactly like the US / UK issue. I believe some of the song titles were twisted as well.

    lock on !!

    ReplyDelete
  3. You mention:

    The phonetic translation of the band name "beatles", actually means "diheveled hair" in Chinese.

    And "diheveled hair" (often referring to an untidy woman).

    In addition to the old "L" and "R" diremma, do the Chinese have an aversion to the letter "S" as well?

    FYI: the word is: diSheveled.

    It is derived from the french word "chevel" for hair.

    Yeah yeah yeah.

    Great album cover.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Actually, the beatles were referred to as the "pi tou si" as in "disheveled hair four".

    It's intended to be a name that sounds like "beatles" and yet at the same time, describe their physical attribute of floppy hair, which was their defining characteristic, i suppose...

    ReplyDelete
  5. On www.beatles-mania.com you can have audio file of many beatles songs!
    And that's great!
    Believe me!

    ReplyDelete
  6. oh... dear... GOD. I think ringo looks the most disturbing...

    ReplyDelete