World Translation Center Music Blog

July 20, 2015

The Saragossa Band is a German pop band from Munich, Germany. From the late 1970s until about the mid-1980s it was one of the most successful and sought after professional party bands in Germany.

The Saragossa Band mixed pop with elements of Calypso and Samba. This band was the only German band to ever tour the South Pacific, which turned out to be extremely successful for them.

Their biggest hit came in 1977 with the song “Big Bamboo”, which is sung in the Caribbean dialect of Papiamento. “Rasta Man” and “Zabadak” followed, two songs with relatively few lyrics, which, despite that, made it into the top ten in the German charts.

The songs “Ginger Red”, “Agadou”, and “Aiko Aiko” did not make it into the top-10, but “Agadou” is the song with the greatest long-term success and is even today by far the most popular song of the group.

Today, the Saragossa Band still performs in concerts and also plays during major festivals. You can still hear all their songs on the radio or on TV, but especially in beach bars and popular discotheques.

We recently received a request for transcribing the lyrics of “Big Bamboo”. In order for a native to be able to transcribe a song, especially a song performed by several people, listening to the song many times is required because often the words are difficult to understand.

Before tackling such a difficult transcription, one of our German translators did a quick search on the Internet, but that did not reveal any lyrics. When the translator then searched the German forums, he found a company that was selling the sheet music with the lyrics and he also found one individual who had the lyrics and was willing to fax it.

The client was very pleased with the service.