Listening to the wireless this evening, I was reminded of a thought I’d had a while ago, particularly regarding the first song. French versions of songs are frequently more raw, or passionate, or vulnerable, than their English counterparts.
Here are two examples.
Que reste-t-il
Ne me quitte pas
Or Mary Hopkins v Dalida?
Dans une taverne du vieux Londres
Où se retrouvaient des étrangers
Nos voix criblées de joie montaient de l’ombre
Et nous écoutions nos cœurs chanter
C’était le temps des fleurs
On ignorait la peur
Les lendemains avaient un goût de miel
Ton bras prenait mon bras
Ta voix suivait ma voix
On était jeunes et l’on croyait au ciel
La, la, la…
On était jeunes et l’on croyait au ciel
Once upon a time there was a tavern
Where we used to raise a glass or two
Remember how we laughed away the hours
Think of all the great things we would do?
Those were the days, my friend
We thought they’d never end
We’d sing and dance forever and a day
We’d live the life we choose
We’d fight and never lose
For we were young and sure to have our way
Do you think that the French versions just more poetic, or is it just my anglophone ear?
Les Rives du Loch Lomond - Tri Yann is a favourite of mine
I think it could be because it sounds more exotic in a different language and the intonation is different. To me, ‘Vamos a la playa’ sounds a lot more interesting than ‘Let’s go to the beach’.
I thought of a couple of other examples, both Claude François as it happens. He translated Daydreamer (David Cassidy), which I thought was a bit bland and turned it into Le Mal Aimé that Intermarché used in their viral Christmas ad.
And the other one was Claude writing about his slow break-up with France Gall. Paul Anka loved the tune but thought the French lyrics were really depressing, so he wrote My Way.
I probably prefer the French lyrics to Le Mal Aimé but the English ones to My Way.
‘French version’ rubs me up the wrong way, surely ‘version’ implies it’s not the original? eg Ne Me Quitte Pas is the original, there may be English versions. Ditto que reste-t-il de nos amours.
Because of rules about francophonie and the percentage of foreign languages allowed on the radio or television there was a huge industry writing French lyrics to anglophone and other songs, often the lyrics in French are a bit more complex simply because we expect chanson à texte rather than yeah baby repeated ad infinitum. Obviously we have plenty of rubbishy lyrics too.
I didn’t mean to imply anything about the original, because (as far as I know) the two songs I mentioned were originally French, though I may be wrong. Certainly the French [insert a synonym of “versions”] had rather more passion, and were more poetic, than their English counterparts.
But you’re right: French can be annoyingly imitative of Anglophone music.
That’s exactly what I said. As for the imitation it’s the lyrics which had to be in French, Dalida - since you mention her - specialised in French lyrics to popular songs (eg the one about the itsy bitsy teeny weeny polka dot bikini) which already had English lyrics. As she wasn’t English, however, she was able to sing flawlessly in Italian and Greek and Spanish as well as French.
