OMG! Great stuff! But, what a co-inky-denky! Now, to demonstrate I am not making this up (as I have posted this only a few minutes after today's entries came out), I have to advise that M&P have an already finished parody using exactly the same OS, except ours follows no story. It was, between us, an amalgamation of the best parts of what we THOUGHT we were hearing (if it was English)! It is entitled "Hobbityaki (The Ballad Of Gina And Yuri)". I shall see that it gets released tomorrow, as an accompaniment to this fine effort :)

Back to yours though, great lines, particularly laughed at "Are you Yoko Ono?", heh heh!

Hi Pip. I just checked in early to see if this made it through the editors (I had my doubts). It was quite difficult, actually, but I'm conversational in Japanese, which helped with the syllable matching. Glad you liked it and looking forward to seeing yours - sounds interesting.

LL - this was fantastic, and hilarious. I had to read it several times to get the full appreciation of it, like fine sake.

Cleverly crazy...very well done

@ AFW: Thanks. Sometimes I wish I were clever at other things ...

@ Merry: Domo arigato gozaimasu. O susume michi wa yominagara kyoku o kiku; sore hodo motto okashi wa, to omoimasu. Mochiron, sore o dekita, ka na?
(Loosely) Thank you so much. The best way is to listen as you read. It's much funnier that way, I think. Of course you could do that?
Sorry, showing off! It's interesting how you say it sustains repeated readings, or rather listenings. I think that's one of the best things about phonetic matching. Normally, once you have the tune, a parody stands without repeated listenings, unless you're analyzing the pacing, syllable count etc. But I've found myself repeatedly replaying and following this. Wotta wanker, as Pippin might say.

@ Pippin: 'Yoko Ono' was really the only part that didn't really match up phonetically, but I thought it was too funny to leave out. Thanks for proving me right. Poor Yoko. She lost her John too! (SICK!)

When I read this the other day I was hearing the OS from memory. So today I read again while playing the song. This really IS a masterpiece - one of the finest things I've seen on here in quite awhile. Some of the best lines: "Me GI Dan", "Key no' here" and of course the last line.

@ Merry: Shiawase wa (It is happiness). You made my day. I was very pleased with it, says he modestly, and thinking about another go at it. I could try other Japanese songs but they're too little known outside Japan.

Glad you got my hint - in my (longwinded) intro, I did strongly recommend following the OS as you read, even if you know the melody, especially in cases like this. Another one of mine a while back that really needs the link is 'The Calvary Hillbilly' (which you kindly commented on). To get it, you really need to go to the version I used, so if you didn't do so ...

Syllable-matching Japanese to English is very tricky, as every consonant is followed by a vowel. For example, they use the borrowed word 'sleeping bag' (3): su-ri-pi-n-gu-ba-gu (7). The Japanese English accent is nothing like the Asian stereotype in the parody. Every word or sentence must end in a vowel, except for 'n'. So 'My name is David' becomes 'Ma-i ne-mu i-zu De-i-bi-do'

But like other Asian languages, there is no distinction between 'l' and 'r' (brilliant British humorist Stephen Fry pointed out you'd think they'd get it 50 per cent right instead of the usual zero. So you get cool stuff like the sign at the arrivals lounge at Kansai airport: 'We hope you enjoyed your fright' (long since removed), or the promo poster at a HMV store: 'Ayumi Hamasaki: Check out her bland new album.'

There are lots of other anomalies. The sounds 'too' and 'tee' don't exist, approximated by 'tsu' and 'chi'. They can't distinguish between 'see' and 'she', or 'bee' and vee', and the schwa, the most common sound in English, is well nigh impossible even for advanced Japanese speakers of English.

Anyway, as you mentioned elsewhere I've picked up enough bad influences here without going the route of unsolicited didactism (joke TT). So thanks for reading if you got this far.

Thank q for a phonetic transcription of this great song. This must have taken some work and I appreciate it. I will use it to learn the song phonetically and terrorize people at karaoke bars.