Good songs that are in your native language (no English, please)

One thing that growing up in Sweden has taught me is that there's a gargantuan amount of awesome music that people never get to hear because it's not in a language they speak. I could sit here for hours just listing Swedish songs that are sadly undiscovered by those who don't speak Swedish.

So let me hear what songs in your native language the rest of the world ought to discover. Links, though not mandatory, are highly appreciated.

(Please, no English, which is already spread everywhere. If English is your native lingo, just pick some other obscure language. But no K-Pop or anime intros, please—after all, this is supposed to be about music that isn't big internationally, and those two genres are relatively big internationally.)

Here are my recommendations: ''Sången dom spelar när filmen är slut'' by Peter LeMarc

''Don Quixote'' by Björn Afzelius

''Dansar i månens sken'' by Suzzies Orkester

''Kung i baren'' by Magnus Uggla

I'm actually not that much into Czech popular music but in honour of the 30th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution. 30 years of freedom. It was yesterday.

"Prayer for Martha", lyrics inspired by John Amos Comenius, sang by our national treasure Marta Kubišová.

I'm not into our Kazakh pop music much these days (or pop music in general, really), since the local pop scene started degenerating in mid-2000s. When it comes to music in my mother tongue, I mostly listen to our folk songs or hits from the 90s. Here's one of them:

Raindrops, by ABK Band.

So my only non-English-speaking heritage is Polish, but I don't actually know the language, nor am I familiar with any artists who sing in it. Anyway, a few minutes on google turned up a Polish symphonic metal band called Herjalf and they seem pretty cool.

I feel like this thread could use a more indicative title ("songs in languages with less exposure"), but whatever, here's some French hip-hop.

Edited by PhysicalStamina on Nov 25th 2019 at 9:14:03 AM

I'm Franco-Ontarian, but the first song that comes to mind is in Danish:

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Well, it's in Croatian and by Croatians and I'm from Serbia but still. This song makes me miss my uncle so damn much...

The music video is pretty surreal, but the song is sad if you know what the lyrics mean.

I like this singer's voice. She would have represented Romania in the 2020 Eurovision.

Dabke music slaps. A bit repetitive, but it slaps.

Ritanee - Fares Karam

Also, since I grew up listening to Fairouz:

Kifak Ya Inta

Some songs in Italian which are not very known abroad (I suppose).

La vita dopo la notte Murubutu is an atypical rapper for the Italian scene, because he writes very refined lyrics, full of historical, literary and philosophical allusions (he is a history teacher). This song is more intimate, nostalgic, a classical love song (with great, not trivial lyrics).

Another rapper I like is Rancore. Great lyrics, too, a little plainer and less erudite than Murubutu, but musically it seems to me more original and more interesting. Epic sometimes. This one sounds like a sort of fantasy tale, which is in reality a deconstruction, alluding to the violence and the lies of power:Sangue di drago Another one I like: Sunshine

Some older stuff: Alice - Le ragazze di Osaka Alice was a famous singer in the 80s, who collaborated with artists like Peter Hammill and Jon Hassel.

Scisma - Tungsteno Scisma is an indie band of the 90s, when different british and american styles of indie rock found many italian imitators, some of them giving the styles an original twist. Scisma were on psychedelic/shoegazing side of the spectrum. This song was a small cult; the word salad lyrics mixes English and Italian, looking more at the sound than the meaning of words.

Fabrizio De André - Sinan Capudan Pascià De André is one of the most famous italian songwriters. In the 80s he made an album "Creuza de mà", inspired by the traditional musics of all the people of the Mediterranean See, sung in the dialect of Genua (considered one of the harsher, less musical dialects of Italy).

So, I'm actually from the Caribbean region of Colombia, but this musical genre is really popular here. I grew up listening to this song, for example https://youtu.be/XV6FyGrlNt8

I'm not even sure which language is that but is African music. I think the video says is an adaptation from a traditional song in Kikongo? And there are a lot others that everyone listens to here.

Also, the original song where Shakira based This is Africa on !! I mean, this is her home too https://youtu.be/wUReStWnUVs

Edited by always_angry on Dec 10th 2020 at 12:36:52 PM

I'm bilingual, so I speak both Swedish and Finnish equally fluently. There aren't that many regular non-drinking songs in Swedish that I would like very much, but there is a comedic trio called KAJ, whose music I enjoy a lot. They are Swedish-speakers from Ostrobothnia in Finland, so a lot of their songs are bound to that cultural context, due to subject matter and because they sing in their native dialects. That last part makes it a bit challenging for Swedish-speakers from outside of Ostrobothnia to understand them, but it also allows for a lot of clever word-play and funny inside-jokes.

My favourite song by them is "Jåo nåo e ja jåo YOLO ja nåo", which roughly translated means "Yeah, of course I'm totally YOLO, for sure". It's about a middle-aged man trying to score at a party and accidentally hitting on a friend's daughter.

This one's in Chinese. The name literally means "beyond a thousand miles". One of those longing-for-a-loved-one songs. Instrumentation on point though, heavy use of more traditional instruments.

Alrighty, here's one of my favourite songs ever, for a number of reasons. One), it's official soundtrack for the first movie of my favourite animated franchise and two) it introduced me to one of my favourite local bands ever. 2016 was a blast man....

"Masih Di Sini" (translates from Malay to "Still Right Here") is a song made by Malaysian rock band Bunkface for BoBoiBoy The Movie which released in March 2016, the same year the original series concluded itself. It's one of those songs that always lifts my mood, and hopefully the energy is still there for any possible listeners here even with the language barrier.

Whether I'll also find something more traditional in Malay I like is yet to be seen, but have this for now :)

Got a very late-90s/early-00s vibe, it’s pretty nice.

Not exactly my "native" language, but one I’ve started to learn recently as it used to be the dominant language in my region. Enter Occitan! "De cap tà l’immortèla" by Nadau.

Maybe Castillan or Catalan speakers can understand it a bit?

Hmm... There are plenty of Finnish songs that I've listened from my childhood, but I think I'll go with these three songs:

Juice Leskinen - Viidestoista Yö(Fifteenth Night)

Rauli Badding Somerjoki - Paratiisi(Paradise)

Ultra Bra - Minä Suojelen Sinua Kaikelta(I Protect You From Everything)

This song was supposed to represent Sweden in Eurovision 2005, but got screwed over by the jury vote. Truly the greatest tragedy of the 21st century.

All of Knutsen & Ludvigsen.