Of late, I’ve been listening avidly of late to a few CDs by the quite brilliant band Unheilig, picked up on my last trip to Stuttgart. It’s a rare pleasure to discover a band I’ve not previously encountered with a body of work as strong as theirs: think Rammstein crossed with Muse with a dash of Editors?

They sing in German – which I studied at school, but have hardly used in the 25-odd years since I passed my O Level (with a grade A, I’ll have you know). As a result, I can only pick up the occasional vague clues as to the meaning of the lyrics. Emma Jane, being one of those clever types who can talk foreign, helpfully translated perhaps my favourite of their tracks (featured on my darling wife’s modelling site a while back) as we sped along the motorway recently – and it was fascinating to discover that the words are quite as powerful as the music.

Music, it struck me, is something of a global language – you don’t need to follow the words to understand the shades of dark, light, joy, fear. That must be true for spanking, too – a scolding’s clearly a scolding, whether or not the young lady can follow a word of it. The instructions to bend over: I’m sure the meaning can be communicated without the specific words being understood. The feeling of a hand smacking bared skin, a cane or belt making its impact – language isn’t necessary for the message to be absorbed. Actually, I imagine the lack of comprehension might make the experience still more intense.

So I wonder: has anyone ever played a scene in a language that the young lady concerned hasn’t understood? And did it work as well as I imagine it might?