Song Translation - Mustapha
---------------------------

Mustapha has always held a certain mystique for a number of reason. Firstly
the vocals are so powerful, and yet the meaning of the words are not known
by hardly any fan. Nor were the lyrics reproduced with the album, which
could suggest that they are either nonsense or too personal for Freddie to
allow to be printed. Make your own mind up. 

Finally, we learn a little of what the words mean via the transcription
below. What follows is a file from the Internet from Mark Lamki, who wrote
this translation of Mustapha:

Some of you may remember a discussion a few months back (in 1994 on the
Internet) about what language Mustapha was in. I should apologise to Majid
Mirmehdi who said it was in Arabic. I said it wasn't. In fact we were both
right, sort of. Some of it is Arabic, but most isn't. The Arabic is limited
to names and expressions which even I, who know no Arabic worth mentioning,
can translate. I knew about this at that time, but never thought about it,
because I considered it so insignificant.

Well, now I have done my best to transcribe the lyrics as accurately as I
can. For the non-English parts, in order to be as phonetically consistent
as possible, every time a sound appears I've used the same letter(s) to
represent it. However there are doubtless some mistakes. In particular,
words which I have ended with "n" may in fact end in a "d" or "m" sound; I
was often uncertain.

Guide to pronunciation:

consonants are pronounced as in English except-

dh   pronounced as "th" in English "these"
ch   pronounced as "ch" in Scottish "loch"

vowels are as follows-

a    as in "hat"    OR as in "around"
e    as in "met"
i    as ee in "seen"
o    as in "hole"   OR as in "hot"
u    as in "put"    OR as in "but"

ai   as y in "why"
ei   as ay in "way"

"adhim" (in front of a person's name) means "great"

I have made no distinction between short and long vowels except in the
Arabic word "Salaam" where I have used the standard English spelling.

OK, here goes!


Ibrahim, Ibrahim, Ibrahim,
Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah will pray for you.
Hey!

Mustapha, Mustapha, Mustapha Ibrahim.
Mustapha, Mustapha, Mustapha Ibrahim.

Mustapha Ibrahim, Mustapha Ibrahim
Allah, Allah, Allah will pray for you.
Mustapha Ibrahim, al havra kris vanin
Allah, Allah, Allah will pray for you.
Mustapha, hey! Mustapha
Mustapha Ibrahim, Mustapha Ibrahim, hey!

Allah-i, Allah-i, Allah-i,
Ibra-Ibra-Ibrahim, yeah!
Ibrahim, Ibrahim, Ibrahim,
Allah Allah Allah-i hey!

Mustapha Mustapha - Allah-i na stolei
Mustapha Mustapha - Achtar es na sholei
Mustapha Mustapha - Mochamut dei ya low eshelei
Mustapha Mustapha - ai ai ai ai ahelei
Mustapha,
Mustapha,
Ist avil ahiln avil ahiln adhim Mustapha,
Salaam Aleikum!

Mustapha Ibrahim, Mustapha Ibrahim
Allah, Allah, Allah will pray for you.
Mustapha Ibrahim, achbar ish navin
Allah, Allah, Allah will pray for you.
Mustapha, Mustapha
Mustapha Ibrahim, Mustapha Ibrahim, hey!

Allah-i, Allah-i, Allah-i,
Ibra-Ibra-Ibrahim, yeah!
Ibrahim, Ibrahim, Ibrahim,
Allah Allah Allah-i hey!

Mustapha Mustapha
Mustapha Mustapha
Mustapha Mustapha
Mustapha Mustapha
Mustapha,
Mustapha,
Vontap ist ahiln avil ahiln adhim Mustapha,
Aleikum Salaam hey!


And now the big question...what does it all mean?

Well, firstly I'll point out that it is in THREE languages - English,
Arabic, and an unidentified language which I assume is the Parsi language.

The English bits are obvious. "hey!", "yeah!" and "will pray for you". The
Arabic is as follows...

Mustapha Ibrahim is an Arabic/Islamic name.
Allah          - Islamic title of God, literally means (the)God.
Allah-i        - I think this is an exclamation like English "gosh!" or
                              "good grief!" or "blimey!"

Salaam Aleikum - an Arabic greeting, literally means "Peace be upon you".
Aleikum Salaam is the correct response, literally "upon you be peace".

"Mochamut", despite slightly strange pronunciation, is definitely meant to
be the name of the prophet Mohammed.

The rest of the song is in the unidentified language. I assume it is Parsi
partly because of Freddie's family background, and partly because an
Iranian friend was able to recognise about one word in ten (!) and of
course the Parsis were the original Persians and their language is
presumably related to modern Persian (Farsi). I have recently checked with
a cousin who speaks excellent Arabic and he assured me that it is
definitely not Arabic.

What is the song actually about? Your guess is as good as mine! Someone
suggested it might be about an Arab friend of Freddie's, perhaps from his
childhood in Zanzibar. Maybe. I can't even guess, except to say that the
large number of Islamic references seems significant.

Finally, I'm sorry this is so long! But if you read all of it, just imagine
how long it took me, including repeatedly listening to the song to try to
pick up every single sound. So please, I'd like some feedback. Anything
will do, just tell me you read it and what you thought of it. Now I'm off
for a rest!

If you you have Internet access, and would like to contact Mark about the
above, the here is his address - write to QFN if you reveal anything new.

Mad Mark Lamki <u9066837@athmail1.causeway.qub.ac.uk>






