> Carlebecker writes in English, and then Korean songwriters add new lyrics to her melodies
I believe the correct term would be lyrics, not songs.
A song can have its lyrics translated/altered into an entirely different language and still carry the same weight. Many pop songwriters would argue that the lyrics are one of the least important components.
Non-anglophone countries are full of such songs based on English language originals. Though this musical localization seems have be have been more popular in the past, for multiple reasons.
This is not true. Try listening to "the same" song in two different languages that you can speak, one of which being the language the song was written in.
One of two things will be true:
(a) It is obvious which songs was originally written in that language and which is a translation.
(b) It is not obvious that the two songs are the same.
> I believe the correct term would be lyrics, not songs.
Nope. The lyrics are the song. Music with nothing but lyrics sung to a melody is still a song. Music without lyrics is not a song.
You're pedantically correct according to the original definition of the word "song".
But in modern usage, the word is used interchangeably with "instrumental" and "track".
It's used to refer to everything as a whole, whether or not there are lyrics.
Lyricless music is not as popular today as it was during the peak of EDM, but instrumental tracks were/are still referred to as "songs", even though they technically did not contain a song, since there were no lyrics.
I've actually been kind of shocked how good they are given how poor many professional subtitle translation are. Like recently watching Cyberpunk 2077 and the English subtitles are not remotely close to the Japanese dialog
For me, the vocals are just another instrument and it doesn't matter what the lyrics are or what language they are in.
A B C
It's as easy as 1 2 3
Doe Rae Me
You and me
1 2 3 4
I am going to keep on counting
5 6 7 8