Somehow anything is better when performed in the original Klingon.
It’s a little known fact that nearly every significant work in the history of Earth was originally borrowed from a Klingon idea. Shakespeare, for example, copied his works from an unknown Klingon poet during that poet’s undocumented and unauthorized visit to our planet.
Today’s example comes from Jen Usellis, as conceived and produced by the Improvised Star Trek comedy podcast. The popular hit Kiss Me by Sixpence None the Richer turns out to have been translated from the original Klingon for the American ear – in its original form, the song is a tad more violent, and you can hear the traditional DIr ‘In drums carrying the rhythm as you would in a classical war ballad.
In case you don’t actually speak Klingon, don’t worry – the video is subtitled in English. There is no actual word for “kiss” in Klingon, by the way – the original phrase turns out to be “bite me”, which for a Klingon is approximately the same thing as a kiss would be to a Terran.
Improvised Star Trek follows the voyages of the USS Sisyphus, a less enterprising starship via a biweekly podcast and a monthly live show at the iO Theater of Chicago.
It was translated by Robyn Stewart, Chris Lipscombe, Christopher Kidder-Mostrom, Jeremy Cowan, and Ali Kidder-Mostrom of the Klingon Christmas Carol.
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