Aranjman

The present study focuses on pop song rewrites in other words aranjmans in 1960’s Turkey. After reviewing previous scholarly approaches to song translation it elaborates on aranjman in other words imported songs on two levels. The macro-level investigation deals with how political economic and cultural developments paved the way for the importation of pop music as a genre whereas the micro-level is concerned with the analysis of songs in the light of the macro-level findings both from the perspective of translation theory. Problematizing views that place excessive emphasis on the semantic rendering of lyrics in song rewriting the study underscores that “singable” song translation and the criticism thereof cannot be fruitful unless a holistic approach is adopted. In the real world of the music industry the various modes of rewriting are all dependent on one another and thus song rewriting cannot be reduced to lyrics rewriting alone.