Rock songs with non-English lyrics?

Warren Zevon since an entire song, Laissez-Moi Tranquille, in French on “My Ride’s Here”.

‘since’? Er, ‘Sings’.

Rush threw in some French in their great track CircumstancesPlus Ca Change …” (OK, I can’t remember what the whole line is, but Geddy helpfully follows it with “The more that things change, the more they stay the same”, which I think is the translation).

Half of Leonard Cohen’s song The Patriot is in French (actually, it’s a cover - I’m trying to find whether the original is all French, or all English, or a combination). Now that I think about it, in a live version of Bird On A Wire, he also begins it off with some French.

Something about Canadians, I guess :wink:

The Talking Head’s “Pyscho Killer” has a couple of lines of French during the chorus.

Kyu Sakamoto is Japanese and the song was popular in Japan (Under its original title Ue o Muite Arukoo (I look up when I walk)) before it was in the US, so…I suspect it’s indeed in Japanese.

And if you include bands/singers from non-English-speaking nations, you’ll find a lot of non-English rock. I’ve got a number of Japanese rock songs (and a much, much larger number of Japanese pop songs) hanging around - while a large proportion have some English lyrics, and a handful are completely in English, 99% are at least mostly in Japanese. Sadly, save for Sukiyaki, Japanese popular music doesn’t make much headway over here, so I’m not sure most of it counts, for this question.

The pixies have some songs in Spanish. Ofcourse, Rammstein sings in German, but I think it’s better to exclude foreign bands who sing in their native language…

Mmm… It’s pretty hard. I can think of a few, but those probably don’t even qualify as songs:
…And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead - Life is Elsewhere (Japanese, I think)
Tool - Die Eier von Satan (German)
Tool - Message for Harry Manback (Italian)
Bad Religion has a Germanified version of Punk Rock Song… That’s all I can think of for now.

Billy Joel’s “C’etait Toi (you were the one)” has a load of French in it.

Rick Springfield’s “Don’t Talk to Strangers” also has a French verse.

And speaking of gibberish foreign language, does anyone know what Plastic Bertrand’s “Ca plane pour moi” means?

In R.E.M.'s Talk About The Passion, Michael Stipe sings “combien du temps?” French for “how much time?”

Do you mean by rockers who usually sing in english? Otherwise
there are lots of bands around the world that sing rock songs in their native languages.
Noir Desire (french), Rammstein (as mentioned in another post, german), Brainstorm (latvian), Stereototal (though not strictly rock sing in several languages french, german, and turkish i think), Mano Negra (spanish), to name but a few.

The Sugarcubes sometimes sung in Icelandic

Hún á heima í húsinu þarna
þar heim fyrir utan
Grabblar í mold með fingrunum
Og munninum, hún er fimm ára

(No, I have no idea what that means)

SUPER FURRY ANIMALS!

They usually include one or two songs in Welsh on their albums, and one album – Mwng – was sung entirely in welsh.

Billy Idol sang “Les Yeux Sans Visage” (eyes without a face).

Spanish:
“What comes around” by Ill Nino
“Caress me down” by Sublime
“Spanish eyes” by Madonna

Then there are artists who often sing in English, though it’s not their native language, while sprinkling in some non-english words, like Ricky Martin and Ace Of Base (although in Ace of Base’s case I think they have some lyrics in French, and they’re Swedish.)

At the end of Roxy Music’s “Song for Europe,” Bryan Ferry re-sings most of the English lyrics in French:

“Tous ces moments de l’echantement,
Qui ne reviendront jamais.
Et aujourd-hui pour nous, pour nous il n’y a rien
A partager sauve le passe.”

Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto–STYX

That’s Amore–Dean Martin

The album Sean-Nos Nua by Sinead O’Connor has several songs in Gaelic

And the reason Rammstein is “stupid” would be?

Certainly not because they sing in their native tongue, German…

Well, Buh-wheat say dat Rammtein is O-tay.

true dat.

Gorky’s Zygotic Munci, Welsh colleagues of the Furries, also have sung often in Welsh. Even the third part of their moniker is Welsh (for “monkey,” of course).