Quidni Me Voces? (Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe" in Latin)

Carly Rae Jepsen by Joe Bielawa (Wikimedia Commons).

[Editor’s Note: If you’re looking to go back in time to 2012 A.D. — and given the news today, why not — one of the most reliable ways is to put on Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe,” which dominated the airwaves that summer. And now you have a version of it in Latin, which will either be ten times more embarrassing or ten times less, depending on what kind of person you are. Jon Meyer’s Latin version manages to sound like idiomatic Latin while remaining close to the original — “Nunc es obviam” for “Now you’re in my way” actually sounds like it could be just as valid a way of suggesting a crush in Latin as it is in English (which is to say, not valid in either language, but we’re not worried about it). And the “furorem putes” for “this is crazy” is a brilliant Vergilism that would put this song comfortably into a modern musical version of the end of Book I of the Aeneid.]

CALL ME MAYBE/QUIDNI ME VOCES? (Carly Rae Jepsen) (Jepsen/Ramsay/Crowe)(tr. Jon Meyer)[2011]

Votum iec(i)

in puteo

ne quaeras, non narrabo

dum cadit, t(e) aspicio

et nunc es obviam

pro corde muto votum

pro assibus basium

hoc erat improvisum

sed nunc es obviam

[praechorus]

haeres defixus,

rarus, seminudus;

calet, fremit ventus

quonam es iturus, meli?

[chorus]

te iam conveni;

furorem putes:

numerum cape:

quidni me voces?

Vix intueri

queo te, spes:

numerum cape:

quidni me voces?

te iam conveni;

furorem putes:

numerum cape:

quidni me voces?

me iuvenes sequi

conantur omnes;

numerum cape:

quidni me voces?

[versus 2]

post moram me vocasti

haud mor(a) ego cecidi

nihil mihi dedisti

tamen es obviam

precor, mutuor, furor,

quod verumst, ominor,

dudum me sensur(um) ignor-o

sed est obviam

[praechorus]

haeres defixus,

rarus, seminudus;

calet, fremit ventus

quonam es iturus, meli?

[chorus]

te iam conveni;

furorem putes:

numerum cape:

quidni me voces?

Vix intueri

queo te, spes:

numerum cape:

quidni me voces?

te iam conveni;

furorem putes:

numerum cape:

quidni me voces?

me iuvenes sequi

conantur omnes;

numerum cape:

quidni me voces?

[pons]

Antequam venist(i) in vitam

desiderabam

desiderabam

desiderabam te

Antequam venist(i) in vitam

desiderabam

(hoc est sciendum)

desiderabam te