Singer-songwriter Dawen’s done it again – this time, with Carly Rae Jepson’s “Call Me Maybe.”  Making Mandarin covers of crazy overplayed pop songs isn’t new for him; last summer he put up a cover of the infamous “Friday.”  Added bonus: all his Mandarin covers are posted karaoke style with both Mandarin and English lyrics to enable singing along.

I first discovered Dawen through Angry Asian Man, when Phil Yu had posted an acoustic cover of Jay Sean’s “Down” (Unfortunately it was English only).  Dawen has also released a debut album “American Me,” available on iTunes and Amazon.

Surprisingly (or unsurprisingly, depending on your point of view) “Friday” translated a lot better; the “Call Me Maybe” translation gets more stilted and formal – “Where you think you’re going baby?” ends up roughly being “Can we please talk soon?”  The short and catchy phrase “Call Me Maybe” from which the song is eponymously named turns into “If you have time, please call me.”  If you speak any Chinese or taken any Chinese translation classes, you’ll understand how the shortest sentiments in English seem to end up taking two sentences to verbalize in Chinese.

Which is not to say this cover isn’t utterly fantastic.  Dawen’s discovered a unique niche for himself, and I for one love playing his covers in the car and confusing all my passengers.