los xochimilcas

songs: She Loves You, I Want to Hold Your Hand, And I Love Her
language: Spanish
performer: Los Xochimilcas

I was surprised that there doesn't seem to be anything out there on Los Xochimilcas - not even a Spanish wikipedia page. From looking at the many YouTube videos of them, they seem to have been a popular - if not taken seriously - band that blended popular and Mexican musical styles with broad humor. A sort of Mexican Spike Jones or Mickey Katz. And like Katz, whose great talent for klezmer music was often overlooked due to his shtick, Los Xochimilcas were very talented musicians beneath the clowning. Their versions of these three Beatles songs reveal a sensitive ear for arranging and an expert incorporation of pop and Mexican idioms.

And they're funny too: The first video, a cover of She Loves You, begins with a verse in random English before switching to Spanish:

A one two three four five
Seven eighteen, seven eighteen
Kiss me once again
Is forever, is forever
And my sister! And my sister waits for me
Very happy, very happy, same to you!

The other two covers are instrumentals.

mám ju rád

song: She Loves You
language: Slovak
performer: The Beatmen

The Beatmen were a Slovak beat combo that released a few singles in the 1960s, all in English except for this cover of She Loves You. All but one member emigrated to West Germany in 1966, where they met with little success and split up soon thereafter.

elle t'aime

song: She Loves You
language: French
performers: Nancy Holloway, Jacky Moulière, Les Arvern's, Jimmy Frey, Les Chats Sauvages

A bunch of recordings of She Loves You in French:

Nancy Holloway:



Jacky Moulière:



Les Arvern's:



Jimmy Frey:



And here's a link to one by Les Chats Sauvages (the video is blocked in the US, and probably elsewhere)

mal evans memorial band

songs: She Loves You, Hard Day's Night, Sgt. Pepper's
language: Dutch
performer: Mal Evans Memorial Band

The Mal Evans Memorial Band was a recent Beatles cover band from the Netherlands, and they did an entire album of Dutch covers. They've since split into two separate tribute bands, Love & Mersey (who will appear here shortly singing in Russian!) and The Old Brown Shoes. Mal Evans was a long-time roadie and friend of the Beatles.

Here they are performing a few snippets on a Dutch TV show devoted to the Beatles. If you want to skip the Beatlenerd banter, the pieces and their start times are, in order:

1:50 - She Loves You ("Zij houdt van jou")
4:13 - Hard Day's Night ("Dagzwaar 's nachts")
6:12 - Sgt. Pepper's ("Captain Iglo's zangzaadkoor").

hello, hello

Hi and welcome. This blog will serve two purposes:

1) to waste my time and yours

2) to compile covers of Beatles songs that have been translated into any and every language on earth.

There are millions of Beatles covers out there: good, bad, and godawful, and translated covers run the same gamut. But before delving into that dangerous world, let's get these non-covers out of the way:

Komm, gib mir deine Hand:


Sie liebt dich:


And a bit of Geh Raus - a mix of real and faux German, with some (faux?) French at the end: