Forget About Love

Notes

Guided by expert translator Alto, we managed to make our way through half of this four-part popular Somali song, performed by Xasan Aadan Samatar and Xaliima Khaliif “Magool”, written by Xasan Xaaji Cabdillaahi “Xasan Ganey” and composed by Axmed Nuur “Jaangow”. In the song, Xasan and Xalima take it in turns to sing from different perspectives. Xasan’s character is trying to woo Xalima’s character: he says it’s what Allah intended. But in her reply in the second section, she doubts he has the money or the serious intentions that she’s looking for – hence the title ‘Forget About Love’, her rebuttal. Interestingly, while this is the official registered title of this song, fans know it by a different name, Xasan’s final line above: ‘Love has no price’. Or, in other words, ‘even though I’m poor, you should be with me’. Whose side are you on?

There were some great discussions and comments throughout this workshop, which was conducted mostly in Somali (with me summarising and noting down lines once everyone had figured out what each stanza meant). We had fun debating levels of fog (is it fog? Mist? Haze?) and picking through different interpretations of ambiguous Somali words. One of my favourite comments was Rashiid Gadhweyne’s beautifully phrased remark near the start of the workshop: ‘The first thing to be lost in translation is the poem.’ I hope we returned some of the poem back to our translation.

-Helen Bowell