Backstory
I decided to write a song in German.
There was one obvious problem: I don't speak German.
The idea came from the Brothers Grimm fairy tale Schneeweißchen und Rosenrot (Snow White and Rose Red). I wanted a song people could dance to, but the original story wouldn't have worked for that. So I decided to have the bear attack the girls, giving them a reason to begin a magical dance.
In my version, the bear charges at the sisters, hungry and furious. They begin to dance, and their shadows pull free from the ground and whirl around him. He swipes at them, snaps his jaws, and catches nothing. Somewhere in the chase, his angry stomps fall into rhythm. When the shadows return to the ground, he starts dancing with the girls.
Then he stumbles. The sisters steady him, even though he still has those enormous claws. I liked that change: the bear had gone from a threat to a dance partner. And instead of turning out to be a prince, he is the older brother the girls thought they had lost forever.
I had a story I loved. Unfortunately, I had also given myself the job of telling it in German.
I developed the narrative in English, then used several AI tools to help construct and check the German lyrics. I compared translations, questioned wording, and went back over lines to protect the meaning. I couldn't rely on my own ear to tell me whether a German phrase sounded natural. A line could be grammatically correct and still be awkward to sing. I wanted the language to belong to the music, not sound like English lyrics with German words pasted over them.
The chorus was especially important. "Dreh dich, dreh dich, wilder Bär" - "Turn, turn, wild bear" - had to move like a dance call. I wanted the fiddle and bowed cello to carry the danger and wonder, while the beat stayed steady as fear gave way to playfulness and finally a family reunion.
Only after the German song was finished did I create the English adaptation.
For a while, the only finished version of my own story was the one I needed help translating.