This week, I did a sound slide show for Barbara and her famous song, Gottingen.
Barbara was born in 1930 in Paris into a Jewish family. Raised up in wartime, she experienced fear and emptiness at a young age. She carried this complicated emotion with her throughout her singing career, and made numerous melancholic songs that are loved by fans worldwide.
Barbara wrote Gottingen after her successful concert in Germany, enemy of Babara’s home country France. Barbara always feared to sing in Germany because of political reasons. But the thoughtfulness of organizers in Germany deeply moved her, and as a gift, Barbara wrote the song.
Beside differences in using poetic language, the French version is better also in its “density” in using images. The song is filled with different imaginative images. Like in another verse:
On a vu souvent/Rejaillir le feu/De l’ancien volcan/Qu’on croyait trop vieux Il est paraît-il/Des terres brûlées/Donnant plus de blé/Qu’un meilleur avril Et quand vient le soir/Pour qu’un ciel flamboie/Le rouge et le noir/ne s’épousent-ils pas?
(We often see/The fire spatters/from an old volcano/that we thought too old
It seems that/The burned ground/gives more grains/than a better april
And when the evening comes/For the sky to burn/The red and the black/Don’t they get mixed together?)
I don’t want to be unfair for the English version, so I scanned the lyrics again and I found images like summer birds, bird singing in the night, and empty room, etc. So my point is, the original lyrics provides a wider space of imagination, which seems more real and touching than common English clichés like “I’ll give you everything”,”Whatever you want I’ll give you”,etc.
My last comparison will be about the emotion expressed. In the last verse of the French song, to beg the lover to stay, the man shows such inferior to his lover to an almost self-humiliating level:
Ne me quitte pas/Je ne veux plus pleurer/Je ne veux plus parler/Je me cacherai là A te regarder/Danser et sourire/Et à t’écouter/Chanter et puis rire Laisse-moi devenir/L’ombre de ton ombre/L’ombre de ta main/L’ombre de ton chien…
(Don’t leave me/I don’t want to cry anymore/I don’t want to talk anymore/I will hide there
To look at you/Dancing and smiling/And to listen to you/Singing and then laugh
Let me become/The shadow of your shadow/The shadow of your hand/the shadow of your dog…)
The English version’s ending tries to capture some traces of the original one:
If you go away/As I know you must/There’ll be nothing left/In the world to trust
Just an empty room/full of empty space/Like the empty look/I see on your face
I’d have been /The shadow of your shadow/If I thought it might have/Kept me by your side
The English version shows the sorrow and fear, but compared to the original one, the pain is not as great. Think about yourself hiding in the dark, just to see your lover dancing and singing, to see her laugh, to become her shadow, just to be with her. The pain is greater than saying I have no one to trust, I only have an empty room and your empty look, and I’m willing to be your shadow just to be with you. The point is, French songs show, instead of just tell.
One last thing. This is one of the most influential songs by Jacques Brel. Beside Celine Dion, famous singer like Sting, Nina Simone also did covers for this sone.
Interesting facts:
The theme of the songs (from “Moi, je t’offerai…”) borrows a the opening tune from the second movement of Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No.6.
Well, in case i didn’t express myself very well in my last post about why I love French songs, here’s an example.
First a live by Celine Dion, and listen to what she says. “It is one of the most emotional songs ever written….that sometimes it’s hard for me to sing it.”
Ne me quitte pas, literally translated as “don’t leave me”, is written in 1959 by Jacques Brel, a Belgian song-writer who is famous for his poetic lyrics and has sold over 25 million records worldwide. Rod McKuen, American poet and songwriter, was the first person to have discovered and translated Brel’s songs, bringing him into the English speaking world. The two formed a life-long friendship. When Brel died, McKuen locked himself in the room and drank for a week.
The English version of Ne me quitte pas is If you go away, translated by McKuen. Till now, the song has at least 400 versions in more than 20 different languages. Here’s Barbara Streisand sings the English version, If you go away.
Although the English version made the song popular worldwide, I think it lacks the original poetic language. Like in the original version:
Moi je t’offrirai/Des perles du pluie/Venues de pays/Ou il ne pleut pas Je creuserai la terre/Jusqu’apres ma mort/Pour couvrir ton corps/D’or et de lumier
Je ferai un domaine/Ou l’amour sera roi/Ou l’amour sera loi/Ou tu seras reine Ne me quitte pas/Ne me quitte pas/Ne me quitte pas
(I will give you/The pearls of the rain/From the country/Where it doesn’t rain
I will dig the ground/Till I die/To cover your body/With gold and light
I will make a territory/Where love will be the king/Where love will be the law/Where you will be the queen
Don’t leave me/Don’t leave me/Don’t leave me)
And here’s the English version for the same verse:
But if you stay/I’ll make you a day/Like no day has been/Or will be again
We’ll sail the sun/We’ll ride on the rain/We’ll talk to the trees/And worship the wind
Then if you go/I’ll understand/Leave me just enough love/To fill up my hand
If you go away, if you go away, if you go away
So you see what I mean. The original version shows the fear of losing the lover with vivd images, like the pearl, gold and light, territory and queen. But the English one is filled with empty words, like I’ll make you a day like no day before, or with images that seems romantic but also hard to grasp, like sail the sun and talk to the trees. If I were the lover, I don’t think I will be moved by the later one.
Hi friends! Welcome to Chansons in Autumn! Here, we talk about everything about Chansons — a kind of lyric-driven French songs. You’ll find famous chanteurs and chanteuses (singers) and chansons, with lyrics and translations! You’ll also find interesting stories behind the songs, French musicals, French songs in movies, guitar chords for songs that you like, singing hints, beautiful expressions in chansons (so that you can murmur to your special someone =)), and many more!
Why I started this blog about chansons? Well, the short answer is, chansons are beautiful. There are many kinds of music in the world, from different countries, in different languages, with different styles, talk about different things. As a Chinese growing up in a big city, I’ve been exposed to American songs, J-pop, K-pop, and of course Chinese songs. Although from time to time a song or two would touch me, most of the time the songs are meaningless. You love me, I love you, you don’t love me anymore, I still love you, I miss you, I hate you… (Please do the rest yourself!) The melodies and lyrics lack a sense of beauty.
When I started university, I got the chance to learn French and therefore started to listen to French chansons and got curious about the long long lyrics that seldom repeat themselves. (Just look through any lyrics of chansons and compare to those of pop songs and you’ll know what I’m talking about!) I was wondering: “what are they talking about?”
Well, the answer is “everything”. There is a story in every song, a picture, a sensation. Every word matters: a drop of tear, the sunlight passing through the window, the railroads disappearing in the horizon, a skirt blowing in the breeze in spring… As you listen to the song, it’s more like listening to a story, beautiful, sad, melancholic. You are pulled into the song by the strong and sincere emotions of the lyrics. You feel close to the song, you feel being in the song, you remember traces of yourself, you sigh and you smile.
That’s why I fell in love with Chansons, a type of music different from any other kind in the world. But of course, I’m just a music lover and no expert at all. What I want to do is to provide a platform for sharing, discussing, and learning. I’ll hunt through the web during the week for something impressive, and I’d love to hear about what you think.
Let’s begin our journey now.
PS: If you are a beginner in French, Chansons are a good way to learn vocabulary, phrases and grammar. At the end of the day, you’ll speak French, and speak it beautifully. =)
