Rammstein Gib mir deine Augen lyric with English translation

I wish they would’ve ended it like they did in the demo version.

Hey Hey 🙂

Thanks for translating so many lyrics. I appreciate it and I know it’s hard due to the rather lyrical way they are written.
I’d like to make some suggestions for this lyric, though, if you don’t mind 🙂

“Donate something to me” sounds a bit wrong, since ‘to donate’ would be ‘spenden’ which is a different word and meaning all together.
“Give me something” would be the correct translation, I think, with the side note that the ‘give’ is related to ‘to give a present’ not to ‘to hand something over’. While still used in an imperative structure it’s a subtle difference, since the ‘give me something’ in relation to ‘to give a present’ carries the make-believe willingness of the gift-giver to present something for free that the giver choose by him/herself (I hope I am not too confusing right now) compared to a ‘give me something’ in the pure sense of ‘handing something over’ which carries the sense of will of the receiving party more than the one of the giving party.

This also works well with the singers suggestion concerning the gift/present, the “Ein paar Tränen wären fein”. “One pair of tears would be nice” is actually, in this case, “A few tears would be nice”. ‘Ein paar’ in here works as an undefined number, not as ‘2’ (if it is written with a lower case letter it should be translated as ‘a few’, if it is written with a capital letter it’s ‘A pair’ 🙂 ).

Going back to “Please, leave here something of you” I’d go with “Please, leave something of yours here” it sounds a bit better and works better with the ‘flow’.

“Reib mich abends damit ein” is not an imperative. This sentence just leaves out the ‘Ich’ at the beginning and would therefore be ‘(I) rub it/them in(,) in the evening’ (them, since he is talking about the tears, which is plural).

‘Die Träne fließt, doch fließt sie schwach’ is ‘the tear is flowing, but it flows weakly’ not ‘too weakly’ since that would be ‘doch fließt sie zu schwach’.

‘Ich schlage zu und helfe nach’ is indeed a bit harder to translate, but I’d go with ‘to punch’ since it describes a single motion, not the multiple ones described with ‘a beating’ (maybe “I pack a punch and help along” would work fine).

“Und wenn ich schon um Wasser bitt” is not describing a sort of desperate ‘almost to the limit’ situation, so ‘And when I almost beg for water” would be wrong. It’s more ‘And since I am already asking for water” followed up with “I am also (simply) going to take the wells with me” :).

As mentioned in the beginning, at the ‘Schenk mir deine Tränen’ part I’d go with ‘give me your tears’ (again related to the ‘present/gift’ thing, compared to the more ‘forceful’ sounding “Gib mir deine Augen”).

“Ich bitte sehr” in this case is not reeeaaally related to begging, but more to ‘request’. The closest I’d get to translating this correctly would be using ‘Pretty please’ though the German version uses a more formal structure.

at the “Take the lips from the face” change the second ‘the’ to ‘your’, that is what it actually means 🙂 Also, the next part is “(They) smell bad, I don’t need (them)”. Though omitted in the German structure, the ‘They’ and ‘them’ should be put in the translation.

For lyrical reasons I’d go with “The eyes are the soul’s gates” which is basically the word-to-word translation. The structure has a different sort of feeling to it and can be successfully translated to English 🙂

Now to the part that actually wanted me to suggest some alterations/corrections.

‘sie’ in the next few sentences is ‘the eyes’ not, like in your authors comment, a female person or ‘the soul’. It’s ‘the eyes’ the singer wants to collect. He is referring to the, in the previous part of the sentence mentioned, subject of said sentence which is ‘die Augen’.
The ‘pflegen’ in this part is a bit tricky since it carries the sense of ‘to take care of’ or ‘to care for’ something as what a nurse would do but also a form of cherishing. but I’d probably also go with “(I) want to take care of them, (I) want to hoard them”, though the ‘horten’ carries more of a “I want to treasure them up” sense, but that would destroy the flow.

I don’t really get what you mean with “Only the happiness now lies in disclaimer” but I’d probably use “Well, happiness lies in relinquishment” though that sounds kinda weird, as well. “Das Glück liegt im Verzicht” has more of a proverb structure so it’s not as easy to translate directly but I think ‘relinquishment’ carries the closest meaning to what the German lyric wants to display.

Since he is still talking about ‘the eyes’ the next part changes to ‘Give them to me, you don’t need them’.

Now to the last stanza:

‘Augenhölen’ is eye sockets, which changes the first part of the line from ‘Out of the eyes hollow’ to ‘Through the eye sockets’.

In the next line, the singer wants to stuff something back IN, so ‘into the head’ sounds better than ‘to the head’ :).

Last, but not least, though “Yet you should not cry” is not wrong per se, ‘but’ instead of ‘yet’ sounds a little bit better. If you want to adhere a bit more to the original structure, try to go with “But crying you should not”.

Well… I am probably totally sounding like a douche bag with all the stuff I ‘corrected’ ._.
I don’t mean any harm, I really love Rammstein’s lyrics and I know how damned hard they are to translate (all that fairytale like structure *grumbles*). I hope you can forgive me that I went out a bit more than I probably should have. Still I hope it’s and clears up some of the more quirky things in regards to the content x).

Thanks a lot for providing a translation 🙂

@ Alex & Miette –

That’s exactly what I did with my translation (i.e. it made sense) but for some reason it was deleted and my notes left. That right there is why I’m not going to bother my hole to translate anything for this site again. I did a lot of LIFAD translations and all for no thanks. At least those were left there…

I agree with Alex, I would also like to see a poetic translation officially submitted.

I agree with Hans. Plus, the translation needs to be less literal and more written so it makes sense in English. I.e. “out of the eyes hollow” sounds really awkward and weird. It should something along the lines out “out of the eye sockets” or something. I understand doing a literal translation first then fixing it to it makes sense, but this translation seems half-assed.

what’s the use of people leaving notes if the translation doesn’t change?

Give me something,
leave something here
Please leave something of yours here
A few tears would be fine
I rub myself with them in the evening

The tears flow though they flow weakly
I beat you to help along
And if I have to ask for water
I’ll take the wells with me after all

Give me your eyes
Give me your light
Give me your tears
The soul I do not want

Give me something, please
Your thighs hang heavily
Take your lips from my face
The bad smell, I do not need***

The eyes are the soul gates
want to care for them , want to hoarde them
Now happiness, lies in sacrifice
Give them to me, you do not need them

Give me your eyes
Give me your light
Give me your tears
The soul I do not want

Give me your eyes
Give me your light
Give me your tears
The soul I do not want

Give me Something

Give me Something

Give me Something

From your Eye-sockets.
Your soul wants to steal away
piece by piece, I cram
the soul back in your head

Give me your eyes
Give me your light
Give me your tears
the soul I do not want

Give me your eyes
Give me your light
Give me your tears
But you shall not cry

I spent a good bit of time and effort translating this and besides the fact that it wasn’t used, it’s been deleted and my translation notes left. Why?

Schenk mir was = give me something
reib mich Abends damit ein = rub it on me in the evening
Augenhöhlen means the holes in where the eyes are. “eye-sockets” if you will.

Doch weinen sollst Du nicht = but you will not cry / won’t cry

I believe this song is about loving someone for his appearance and not care about his soul, his inside world, I mean if he’s a good or a bad person. Then when “Till” is “done” with the person either sexually or lovingly he doesn’t care if he breaks that person’s heart.

OR: This song is about making someone love you and deticate himself to you, or even suffer for you just for you to feel special and beautiful then throw him away.

TRANSLATION NOTES:

I think “Schenk mir was” literally means “give me a gift of something” but I though “give me something” just fitted better.

OK, i tried to translate according to my interpretation of the song – torture of a young lady. Nevertheless, as always in Till’s lyrics, the interpretation is up to you and so is the translation. Isn´t that what we all love about Rammstein? 🙂 I hope my translation will be helpful as an inducement for your ideas… 🙂

So, here it is:

Donate something to me
Leave something here
Please, leave here something yours
One pair of tears would be nice
Rub me with that on the evening
Tear flows, however flows too weakly (not enough)
I´m beating to help
And when I almost beg for water
I take the fountain (well) with me

Give me your eyes
Give me your light
Donate me your tears
I don´t want the soul

Donate me something
Donate me something

I beg so much
Your thighs hang heavy
Take the lips from the face
Smelling bad I don´t need
Eyes are gates to the soul
It* wants to care (of), it* wants to hoard
Only the happiness now lies in disclaimer
Give it* here (to me), you don? need it*

Give me your eyes
Give me your light
Donate me your tears
I don´t want the soul

Give me your eyes
Give me your light
Donate me your tears
I don´t want the soul

Donate me something
Donate me something
Donate me something

Out of eyes hollow, the soul wants to sneak
I stuff, piece by piece, the soul back to the head

Give me your eyes
Give me your light
Donate me your tears
I don´t want the soul
Give me your eyes
Give me your light
Donate me your tears
Yet, you should not cry.

* “sie” can either reffer to the soul or to the lady being tortured (in my interpretation). So it can also be “it” as the soul during the whole song… “gib sie her Du brauchst sie nicht” can therefore be:
“give it here (to me), you don´t need it” |taking the soul from the lady/man|
“give her to me, you don´t need her” |taking the lady from the soul|
Anyway, as I think about it further, it is probably “sie” as for the soul… Which in German is “she soul” so that is why “sie – she”

Of course, any ideas for different translation are welcomed! 🙂

Give me something
leave something here
please leave something of you here
a few tears would be great
I rub me in with them at night
the tear flows but it flows weakly
I strike and help out
and when I ask to have water
I even take the fountain

Give me your eyes
give me your light
give me your tears
I don’t want the soul
Give me something
Give me something
I’m very begging
your legs are hanging heavily
take your lips out of your face
they smell bad, I don’t need them
the eyes are the soul’s doors
I want to care for them, want to hoard them
well, the happiness is in the abandonment
give them away, you don’t need them

Give me your eyes
give me your light
give me your tears
I don’t want the soul
give me your eyes

Give me your light
give me your tears
I don’t want the soul
Give me something
Give me something
Give me something

Out of the eye sockets I want to steal the soul
step by step I cram the soul back into the head
give me your eyes
give me your light
give me your tears
I don’t want the soul
give me your eyes
give me your light
give me your tears
but you shall not cry