Okay so last weekend I got totally stuck trying to translate “Against All Odds” lyrics into Spanish for my cousin’s wedding video. Been obsessed with Phil Collins since forever but man those lyrics hit different when you actually sit down to work with ’em.
How It All Started
My cousin Julio hits me up Wednesday night like “hey you’re the music guy – can you make Spanish subtitles for our first dance song?” Sent me the YouTube link and I’m like “piece of cake bro”. Big mistake.
First Disaster Attempt
Opened Google Translate, pasted the whole lyrics. What came out was absolute garbage:
- “Contra todos los peces” – Bro that’s “against all FISH”
- “La única huella que mostrará” – Nope, not “only footprint”
Realized I gotta do this line-by-line like actual translation work. Shoved my instant-noodles aside and got serious.
The Deep Dive Mess
Spent three hours with:
- * open on my phone
- Paper notebook getting destroyed with scribbles
- Replaying the song every 30 seconds
Biggest headache was “How can I just let you walk away?” Spanish has like four ways to say “let” and none felt right. Took me twenty tries to land on “¿Cómo puedo dejarte ir así nomas?”
Final Breakthrough
Woke up 3AM Saturday with soaked pillow – no joke. That “take a look at me now” line had been haunting me. Suddenly remembered my college Spanish prof talking about reflexive verbs. Changed “mírame ahora” to “échame un vistazo” and BOOM! Made sense at last.
Sent the final doc to Julio Sunday morning. He video-called me crying saying it was perfect. Would I do it again? Hell no. But seeing their wedding video with my translation? That’s what makes all the dictionary-crawling worth it. Sometimes you gotta push through even when the damn words fight you every step.