Made-up languages in music

There must be someone writing songs in Elvish and Klingon.

Don't want to hear them though

On The Big Bubble, The Residents made some songs in Mohelmot, the language of the "Mole People". If the songs on Eskimo are supposed to be in some inuit-language, then I'm pretty sure it must be a made up inuit language.

There are other Japanese groups who do this, e.g. the Boredoms (at least on their old records, now there is often something resembling English). They called it 'boago' (Bore language). I think there were others too but nothing springs to mind at this moment. Probably the number of Japanese groups who sing in invented languages has something to do with listening to lots of Western music without understanding much/any of the English.

Alboth! do this as well.

In Rodd Keith's Shome Howe Jehovason Plays (available on "Ecstacy to Frenzy") he uses a language comprised of coughs, belching and speaking in tongues.
http://home.earthlink.net/~roddkeith/tape.html

Frankie Smith's "Double Dutch Bus" (1981, US), was an early rap hit that had choruses comprised of a funkified pig latin inspired by the secret languages kids construct to confound their parents/teachers, etc.

i dont know if this counts, but in a song by renaldo and the loaf entitled "Hambu Hodo", they sing in a language consisting of the titles of books, with loads of letters missing.

the song was inspired when they saw an old hamburger and hotdog van that had several letters missing from the sign, so it just read hambu hodo.

'The House Song' by the Beta Band contains a rap in a made up language.

this list is not complete without Merideth Monk, Joan La Barbara, and Galas.

R Kelly sings a bunch of made-up words on Quit Actin' by Ray J, though i guess it's more like scat singing than an actual structured language etc

What about the Cocteau Twins then?

"What they are [pre-Four-Calendar Café lyrics], are words that I've taken from...maybe seen written down...in a language that I don't understand, and liking them...and maybe...making new words as well out of them. I mean I've got reams and reams of words that I don't have a clue what they mean, but...I wanted them because, I knew I'd be able to express myself without giving anything away." [NPR Interview, 1993].

"See, I find that mine [lyrics] don't have any meanings. They're not proper. Although I've got a great dictionary of them. It's like the Cockney rhyming slang or something. Writers like John Lennon. Writers that just kind of made up their own portmanteaux that caught on and people still use them. They don't mean anything, though, that's the thing. You know all the transcendent sounds. It's all sound all the way through." [Mondo 2000, 1993].

I found these Liz Fraser quotes here: http://www.cocteautwins.com/html/dynamine/lyrics.html

Admittedly, these quotes are ambiguous in places, as to whether the lyrics "mean" anything or not, but I don't think it's controversial to say that vocalisations can have meaning, whether emotional, "expressive" etc, or in terms of their relationship with real words, without this making them "language". Is there some term like "paralanguage" for the kind of nonsense word that sounds right because it borrows some aspects of its form from familiar words?

There's another quote where she's disparaging about other people's attempts to decipher the lyrics. I haven't had time to look at these attempts - although the Intentional Fallacy suggests that it is possible that a person should speak a coherent made-up language without actually having sat down to work out the grammar or a dictionary, and without fully understanding it themselves.

I also found this:
http://www.cocteautwins.org/analysis.htm

- which is an analysis of the lyrics in terms of "Peircean semiotics" - as far is I can tell, he concludes that the vocals are sort-of language-like, in that they're richly suggestive, but not quite a language.

"improv-fake" languages would seemingly include the various scat-singers...the stuff Bill Cosby did with Quincy Jones in the late-60's ("Hikky Burr", et al) immediately comes to mind...

and this one is way off base, but I have to mention it anyway, if only to get it on a thread: "Clear Skin", by Insides...40 minutes of rapturous moaning, meaning nothing but signifying everything...

Addis Black Widow, i dont think they are active anymore but DaCream used to make up her own language/words etc.

Ps. I always thought Enya was singin in Welsh or some Gaelic language of some sort.

Damo Suzuki sings in a mixture of English, Japanese and some made up language. More so recently than in Can days I think (on the made-up stuff).

Rambler said:

There must be someone writing songs in Elvish and Klingon.

Don't want to hear them though

Click to expand...

there's this insane swedish (?) band of "ex-black metallers gone dark ambient", singing in Orkish...(!)
presumably there's an unhealthy obsession with Dungeons&Dragons/Lord Of The Rings going on there...!

(from the review)
..."Join the epic voyage of the orc leader Uglakh and his compatriots. Their adventure begins in the deep lustrous forest filled with the sounds of the wild and the roar of a great fire. Around it sit the Uruki Uglach, awaiting the mysterious primal dance of their shaman. The morning after, the uruks, compelled by their mystic shamans advice to Uglach, attack an old castle. After the raid, the subservient Golug Fachtal and his more adventurous kinsmen Yagui forage the forest, and set out to build a watch tower. After a frustrated argument about a toadstool, the wet Yagul and the other orcs begin building a tower, while the dagalush Knish and his kapuli friend go further afield, and find a deep sea beach, where the melodious elves are making sweet music. Later, we join the clans march during a night filled with wonder. They press constantly on, sometimes marching, sometimes sneaking. After a short stroll in the forest, Uglakh and his clansmen happen upon the dark, brooding castle of the dreaded vampire Ismael. The journey through his dark castle has two parts, with mysterious subterranean chanting and majestic orchestral sounds. They face many perils there, and end in the final battle with Ismael in his greatest chamber."

Click to expand...