lishmo'ah indonevi shel anshei hak'far

One of my favorite Israeli pop songs is "תנו לי רוקנרול" by תיסלם. The song, whose title translates to "Gimme Rock'n'Roll," is essentially a story of conflict. A guy loves rock and roll, but the object of his affection prefers disco.

Years ago when I first tried to translate it into English I got stuck on the end of the last verse. In Hebrew, it's:

הושבת אותי בחדר אתמול עד מאוחר
לישמוע אינדוניוי של אנשי הכפר

Transliterated, it's:

Hoshevet oti bacheder etmol ad me'uchar
Lishmo'ah indonevi shel anshei hak'far.

It made no sense, and I couldn't figure out that word that was pronounce indonevi. All I could figure out was that it was something along the lines of:

She sat me in a room yesterday until late
To hear <indonevi> belonging to the villagers.

Eventually a friend figured it out for me. He's Israeli, and it confused him, so I was at least in good company.

"Anshei hak'far," which literally meant "the villagers" was meant to be a translation of "The Village People." And, of course, "indonevi" was a Hebrew-accented pronunciation of "In the Navy." So the couplet translates to:

She sat me in a room yesterday until late
To hear "In the Navy" by the Village People.

It was confusing because the songtitle was transliterated from the English and the band name was translated.

But the translation was complete.

Yeah, I guess it's kind of a lame anecdote. But it's an excuse to post a video of a great record.