Really this doesn't count as a fully Anglophone-person singing in French, because I know about her from my Welsh ... I'm sure most of you know I've been learning Welsh for a good while. She's probably only about ¼ -anglophone ¾ Cymraegophone. But they all count ...
This is Cerys Matthews ( of Catatonia fame) singing in French ...."Il est midi". Really this doesn't count as a fully Anglophone-person singing in French, because I know about her from my Welsh ... I'm sure most of you know I've been learning Welsh for a good while. She's probably only about ¼ -anglophone ¾ Cymraegophone. But they all count ... She's also done another one .. La Bague .... but I can't find a video of it anywhere.
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Well, as you've now probably realised, they are all buried in the same place ... the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. It must be a horribly scary place to walk round in the half-dark........ Cimetière du Père-Lachaise Origine •Ouvert en 1804, Cimetière du Père-Lachaise est sur le site d'un ancien jésuite retraite Sur le Cimetière •Le cemetière est situè dans le 20eme arrondissement. Personnes Célèbres Il y a beaucoup de gens célèbres qui sont enterrés dans le cimetière. Chantuers Jim Morrison Peintres Georges-Pierre Seurat Aussi Frédéric Chopin Je préféré Oscar Wilde Alors... Dont la tombe aimeriez-vous visiter? •Il est nommé pour Père François de La Chaise, le conseiller spirituel de Louis XI. •Le cimetière est 48 hectares (109 acres) et se composer de dix de milles de monuments. After all that scary stuff, and informative stuff, here's Eleni Mandell with " Dis-moi au revoir encore" ... Eleni Mandell
Eleni Mandell, au prénom de déesse greque, maintient sa tignasse brune d'un élastique élémentaire en jouant avec sa guitare sur scène. Originaire de Los Angeles, où elle étudie les arts, elle écoute Tom Waits en grattouillant sur sa Gibson, puis le rencontre en chair et en os. Cette expérience la persuade de devenir musicienne. Elle tente l'aventure. Guitariste à la voix énergique et confidentielle, la jeune femme vogue dans multiples sphères musicales, country, pop, rock, jazz avec toujours, sa propre note, sa griffe personnelle et sa personnalité éclaboussante. Elle développe très tôt un son Mandell avec Wishbone, son opus folk-jazz de 11 titres sorti en 1998, sur lequel apparait le titre Normandie, vaporeux et langoureux. Sorti sur son propre label qu'elle crée sur le pouce, nommé Mr Charles, ce premier album en 1000 exemplaires qu'elle propose elle-même après ses concerts, se vend comme des petits pains. La jeune femme a du talent et du tempérament. Dans ce monde essentiellement masculin, elle ne recule devant rien, encore moins devant la production de son second album en 2000, Thrill, toujours folk et country ficelé à la corde digne d'un lassau de rodéo pour une ballade dans le grand ouest américain. La demoiselle joue sur scène, parcours des miles seule avec sa guitare, comme guidée par son étoile, écrit dans la foulée en 2001, Turn on the lights, un 2 titres et Snakebite composé de 13 titres. En 2003, c'est son magnifique Country for true Lovers qui aide la belle Eleni à se dévoiler au grand public; elle y chante un traditionnel Kingsport Town. Elle remporte la même année avec Elliott Smith la récompense annuelle du LA Weekly. Son chant et son interprétation se font désormais plus rythmés, plus affirmés et confirmés. Elle se produit avec ses compagnons de route, le bassiste Ryan Feves, le batteur Kevin Fitzgerald et joint au groupe récemment le guitariste Jeremy Drake. Afternoon pointe le bout de son nez cette année 2004. Son style feutré balance entre Dean Martin, Madeleine Peyroux et Jill Sobule (la Negatives de Lloyd Cole; pour les connaisseurs), Eleni dégage une présence sur ses mélodies, elle habite littéralement ses compositions avec un charme chic et rétro. Elle est naturelle, spontanée, une jolie artiste avec un réel talent de création et d'interpretation (elle n'a guère besoin de se maquer avec un président de république, et elle fait elle-même ses chansons). Son dernier album signé en 2007, Miracle of Five est une totale réussite, riche de violons, accordéons, contrebasse, guitares, que je conseille de cueillir avant l'arrivée de Artificial Fire,disque prévu dans quelques mois. (vidéo : Make-Out King) This morning when I took the dog out for a walk, my mp3 player was on the blink ... it would only play one track ... Bouquet de nerfs. So, I listened to it over and over for about half an hour. No problem ... the more you listen to it, the better it gets. It's such an impressionistic song ... the "backing" as they used to call it in the early days of pop music, is minimal, but very evocative and emotional. I also love to hear the whistle of the strings as the chords change ... so real and immediate. Quite how songs like that are assembled I really don't know ... certainly not in the " churn-em-out" way that so many songs are. The whole thing is like someone following a train of thought, with the guitar just adding the atmosphere. It's a perfect combination. They have quite a few other songs like that, but this one is the best example.... subtle, but gripping. Journée de la pleine lune Au sommet de la dune A caresser de loin ton chien T'oublies or not t'oublies Les ombres d'opalines au rendez-vous suivant, j'attends Au fond d'une autre limousine Qui ne vaut pas plus cher Que ce bouquet de nerfs A frôler la calanche Les étendues salines A perte de vue on s'imagine en Chine Trompe la mort et tais-toi Trois petits tours et puis s'en va J'opère tes amygdales Labyrinthiques, que dalle Ne m'est plus rien égal Je sais je n'ai offert que des bouquets de nerfs Rubis de Sade et jade, déjà je dis non Diamant, c'est éternel Des fleurs, des bouts du ciel immense La liste des parfums capiteux Capitalistes c'est bien bien Mais olfacultatif Liste en boule, au panier Finalement j'ai offert quelques bouquets de nerfs Agendas donnez-moi De vos dates à damner Tous les bouddhas du monde Et la Guadalupe S'il arrive qu'un anglais Vienne me visiter Dans la métempsychose Je saurai recevoir je peux lui en faire voir de la sérénité Et même lui laisser un certain goût de fer Et ce bouquet de nerfs You'll be happy to hear that the mp3 thingy is OK now. My computer, however, has been having a bit of trouble with difficult-to-get-rid-of pop-ups constantly ,er, popping up and offering instant riches, and instant less savoury things as well. How do you stop all that?
We're going to do things the wrong way round tonight ... words first, song later. The idea is, for you to have a go at translating the "paroles" first .... it's got to be Terrific For Your French if nothing else. Le Maya Fou me dévisage il me guette, il m'épie Bienvenue dans ma cage Le Maya Fou s'enfuit C'est un cas qui s'installe Et je coule avec lui Mon erreur médicale... Mon diagnostic...est sale Le Maye fou déménage Il s'accroche à mon ennuie Le Maya fou de son image la Maya fou de ma vie C'est un cas qui s'installe Et je couche avec lui Mon amant médical Mon diagnostic est sale Mon diagnostic est sale Mon diagnostic.... C'est un cas qui s'installe et je coule avec lui ( x 9 ) C'est chouette , non ?..... It seems very odd now ... I usually put the words here. Eek.
Daisybox — Diagnostic Release date : Jan. 01, 2005 Label : Barclay / Universal Tracklist:
I found this list of seven songs on the net .... they're touted as being very good for your French ...... but the writer hasn't really told us why. "What they are about" doesn't really matter to us learners ... that's not what we're looking for, but it's what the person who chose them seems to go on and on about. Over the next few posts I'm going to look at each of them and tell you what I think about them, from a learner's point of view. .... meanwhile, you could have a look/listen for yourselves. You could even tell me what you think.... either as a comment or emailing [email protected] .... anyway, here's their list.... 1. “La Tribu de Dana“ (The Tribe of Dana) by Manau This is one of my favorite French songs by far. It’s a song about a war fought between a the Dana tribe and the Celtic warriors. Without going into a lot of detail, the lyrics are beautifully written, and reads like a story that starts the song off with a prelude to hail the start of the war, then progressing to when the battle started, and finally ending the war on a victorious note, becoming the king of Dana. The riff is very catchy, and it’s one of the most popular French songs of all times—highly recommended. 2. “Ma Soeur” (My sister) by Vitaa This song is primarily about betrayal between two friends, how one friend, who was treated like a close sister by the other, betrayed the other when she slept with the other’s boyfriend. The lyrics are written with feelings of both anger and sadness, anger because of the betrayal, but sadness also because she could not believe outright that her own sister would commit such an act of betrayal. Torn between wanting to wanting to forgive her, reminiscing the past, and basking in the fury of the unforgivable act, the melancholic melody serves as a beautiful complement to the woeful words. 3. “Je Lui Dirai“ (I will tell him) by Céline Dion Light and jolly, with touches of a countryside feel to it, Je Lui Dirai is a delightful song, a tune sung by a mother to her son about what he ought to know about life, in the past, present and future. A truly beautiful piece matched with a relaxing melody sung by Célion Dion’s powerful voice. A very soothing song to listen to on a sunny day on the weekend. 4. “Con j’pense“ by Manau Rapid and clever, Manau delivers yet another hit song with “Con j’pense.” In your song choice, this is probably the most difficult to listen to, and also the most difficult to understand, because it contains a lot of slang, but it’s well worth seeing the more colloquial side of French. (By the way, a quick comment about the title. “Con” is a play on the word “Quand,” which sounds like “Con” when spoken in a Southern French accent, which the main rappers in this song use) 5. “Trankillement“ (Quietly) by Fatal Bazooka Another rap, Fatal Bazooka, this is yet another challenging piece to listen to. With lots of cultural references and colloquial terms, it’ll take a while to figure out. If you’re on a slightly more advanced level, I highly recommend this as piece to deepen your understanding of French “street” culture. (By the way, the title is a play on the word in French “Tranquillement,” and where the k replaces qu, probably to make it sound cooler). 6. “Vois sur ton Chemin” (Look on your path) from the film“Les Choristes” Vois sur ton chemin is one of the theme songs in the soundtrack album of the internationally acclaimed film, “Les Choristes” (The Choir), a story about a music teacher who found a job in a school for troubled boys, the tense atmosphere between the students and the teachers, and how he attempts to change this status quo through music. An excellent film if you haven’t seen it yet. The song speaks of the fragility of childhood, which is a befitting song that complements the theme of the movie quite nicely. Sung by a French choir, it’s a great song with a great tune and meaningful lyrics. 7. “Il est temps” (It’s time) by Kyo Light and upbeat, Il est temps speaks about the separation of a couple and the impact it has from for the male partner. The song is a piece that expresses the insecurities, the nostalgia and the longing felt by him and with an atypical melody that doesn’t sound overly doleful, it’s a cool and relaxing song to listen to for all occasions. I think this has a lot going for it .... We generally have 4 different performers on these Simple Stuff posts ... doing their songs pretty much as they started out in life, no frills, no multi-tracking and producers .... but this time we're going to have 4 Simple-Stuff-Style performances by ODyL ... Salaud - C'était l'hiver - Mon Gosse - Douce et Docile → here we go .... Here's an interview ... it should be Terrific For Your French .... Today I'm letting you loose on another of those "put them in the right order" thingys .... here's 6 jumbled-up frames from the penultimate page of that Lucky Luke adventure up there .... and your job ... which I think is fairly easy in this case ... is to put them in the right sequence. Well, I hope you didn't find that too tricky... but not too easy either. And now, it's music time with Las Mains Balladeuses... well-named, as you will see ... with "Contes, Vents et Marées"..... this video reminds me of something else, and when I've found it I'll add it on .... As regular readers might recall, I'm currently reading the French version of Graham Greene's " Our Man in Havana" .... it's getting off to an interesting, if rather complex, start. Have a look at this little bit .... Wormold, by the way is our protaganist and "hero", and the "he" is "docteur" Hasselbacher, who is a bit of a mystery so far ... ..... here we go ...... Wormold courut en boitillant vers le coin de la galerie où se trouvait l'escalier et le docteur l'y suivit en boitillant , mais Wormold avait l'habitude de sa propre claudication. ....a few moments later .... Prêtant l'oreille, Wormold l'entendit passer devant la porte et s'éloigner , clopinant, sautillant et hoquetant . " J'ai le sentiment d'être un espion, je me conduis comme un espion, c'est absurde." .... end of extract.......... Well, it was that "claudication" that got me. We'd already had "en boitillant" and "clopinant" and "sautillant" ..... and now " claudication." Surprisingly, it's an English word too .... and pretty similar in Spanish, and it has come from Latin "claudus" ..... and I can't help wondering if it's anything to do with the Emperor Claudius.. and the name Claude.. But this set off another train of thought ... when I was reading a Spanish William book .. "Guillermo el Superhombre " I got interested in listing all the way people in the book moved around. Obviously the author needs to use a variety of words for such a frequent activity, and it was fascinating to see how far this went ! On top of that, John Sutherland has just published a book all about his theory that all novelists have obsessions which are manifested in the characters they create .. it might be noses, or footwear, or smells, or their complexions,or their involuntary tics and twitches ,or their hair .... or the ways in which they move about. Sutherland's new idea is that we should all watch out , in any book we read, for such obsessions, which the author might even be unaware of in his own writing. Now I think that little passage up there is worth following up. As I work my way through the book I'm going to look out for all these "ways of getting about" and see if I can get a nice juicy collection together. It will add a bit more excitement and interest as I go along. I'm even going to backtrack and see what I might have already missed. Right then ... there's a little something for you to think about.... and while you're doing that, here's Telephone and " Un Autre Monde" Je rêvais d'un autre monde Où la Terre serait ronde Où la lune serait blonde Et la vie serait féconde Je dormais à poings fermés Je ne voyais plus en pieds Je rêvais réalité Ma réalité Je rêvais d'une autre Terre Qui resterait un mystère Une Terre moins terre à terre Oui je voulais tout foutre en l'air Je marchais les yeux fermés Je ne voyais plus mes pieds Je rêvais réalité Ma réalité m'a alité Oui je rêvais de notre monde Et la Terre est bien ronde Et la lune est si blonde Ce soir dansent les ombres du monde A la rêver immobile Elle m'a trouvé bien futile Mais quand bouger l'a faite tourner Ma réalité m'a pardonné M’a pardonné Ma réalité m’a pardonné Dansent les ombres du monde Dansent les ombres du monde Dansent les ombres du monde Dansent les ombres du monde Hé ! Hé ! Dansent, dansent, dansent, dansent, dansent, dansent, dansent, dansent, dansent, dansent, dansent, dansent Dansent les ombres du monde. Here's the link to that John Sutherland book I mentioned ... and you can read some of it too...... it's called " Orwell's Nose" www.amazon.co.uk/Orwells-Nose-Pathological-John-Sutherland/dp/1780236484/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1474137672&sr=1-1&keywords=John+Sutherland Here's an interview with Emmanuelle Monet, the Dolly/Manu frontperson. When you think about it, if you blew away lots of the letters of her name you could get manu ... or for that matter, mue, or mont, or elle, or melon or mélée as long as you're not worried about the accents. They're called ghosts ... I wrote about them last time. By the way, I might have put this interview on before ... this blog has go so big I can't really remember. But then again, I don't think that anyone reads it in the same order I wrote it ... I assume that people drop in occasionally, so sometimes showing or writing things again could be a good idea. Anyway, I'm pretty sure I haven't shown this one before .... there's little bits of her songs in here too, like the beautiful " A quelqu'un " from La Vérité She's come a long way since this 2004 appearance on the French version of Top of the Pops ... this is the song that blew away all my preconceptions about French music ... Plastic Bertrand, Petula Clark and the like.Terrific. Parce qu'on est tous seulement des hommes
On pense que la vie est trop conne Parce qu'on ne sait plus la regarder On ne sait plus se regarder On pense que la vie ne sera bonne Que si l'on passe à la télé C'est pas si dur à réaliser Parce qu'on est tous des stars Parce qu'on est tous des stars Sans télé sans miroir Parce qu'on va tout casser Parce qu'on est tous des stars Un jour où l'autre On abandonne Le simple fait d'être des hommes Toujours chercher à chercher ailleurs Parce qu'on est tous des stars Sans télé sans miroir Parce qu'on est tous des stars Parce qu'on va tout casser C'est bien le mieux que l'on puisse faire Etre des hommes de tout son coeur Juste essayer, juste essayer Parce qu'on est tous des stars Pour tout le mal que l'on se donne Le simple fait d'être des hommes Ne plus chercher à chercher ailleurs Parce qu'on est tous des stars Sans télé sans miroir Parce qu'on va tout casser Parce qu'on va y arriver Parce qu'on est tous des …… Parce qu'on est tous des stars So there I was, stuck waiting in the car with nothing to read ... somebody, I wonder who, had obviously been tidying up all my stuff and therefore it wasn't in the car. La barbe !. Well, the car in front of me in "le parking" had the three letter EOC as the last bit .. I can't actually remember the other bits at the front, but they don't matter. I thought .. OK then, I will try to work out how many French words have EOC as their ghost. Even if you've read about "ghosts" on here, you might have forgotten what they are, so I'll remind you... and show you what I did at the same time. The first word I thought of was FÉROCE ...see E OC in there? If you imagine that the F, R and final E get blown away, they leave a "ghost" of the word féroce behind ... eoc. Next up, I thought of véloce .. not exactly a stunning move into new territory, but hey! It worked..... there's the E, the O and the C all tucked away inside the word, in the right order as well. Me 2, The Rest of The World 0. Then I thunk a bit more. Thunk thunk thunk .... what about reproche ! Ha! I guessed also that reprocher was the verb .. and I was right. 4-0. Then I thought, if "fourche" was a fork there might be a verb enfourcher = to fork. Well, as I found out later, it is a verb, but it means "to mount" .. I suppose that's because when you mount a horse your legs sort of fork around it. I was doing well .... then I remembered that there's a Noir Désir song called Les Écorchés .... and at that point my wait ended. When I got home and looked in the magic book , I found that the ones I had got often led to other ones .... écorce and écorcher and écorchure ( a scratch or graze), for example ... but I also picked up a lot more ..... médiocre, reproduction and its derivatives, close to "reproche" I found ressource, retoucher, rétrospective, rétroactif etc .... and in completely different places there were interlocuter, évocation and révocation .... even exorciser ... that often comes in handy ... and to drive my point home, enfoncer. No doubt there's loads more ... no doubt I will be bombarded with much more interested ones, longer ones, shorter ones .... who knows. It's only right that today's music is going to be Noir Désir ...Les Écorchés Emmène-moi danser Dans les dessous Des villes en folie Puisqu'il y a dans ces Endroits autant de songes Que quand on dort Et on n'dort pas Alors autant se tordre Ici et là Et se rejoindre en bas Puisqu'on se lasse de tout Pourquoi nous entrelaçons-nous ? Pour les écorchés vifs On en a des sévices Allez enfouis-moi Passe-moi par dessus tous les bords Mais reste encore Un peu après Que même la fin soit terminée Moi j'ai pas allumé la mèche C'est Lautréamont Qui me presse Dans les déserts Là ou il prêche Ou devant rien On donne la messe Pour les écorchés Serre-moi encore Étouffe-moi si tu peux Toi qui sais ou Après une subtile esquisse On a enfoncé les vis... Nous les écorchés vifs On en a des sévices. Oh mais non rien de grave Y'a nos hématomes crochus qui nous Sauvent Et tous nos points communs Dans les dents Et nos lambeaux de peau Qu'on retrouve ça et là Dans tous les coins Ne cesse pas de trembler C'est comme ça que je te reconnais Même s'il vaut beaucoup mieux pour toi Que tu trembles un peu moins que moi. Emmene-moi, emmene-moi On doit pouvoir Se rendre écarlates Et même Si on précipite On devrait voir White light white heat Allez enfouis-moi Passe-moi par dessus tous les bords Encore un effort On sera de nouveau Calmes et tranquilles Calmes et tranquilles Serre-moi encore Serre-moi encore Etouffe-moi si tu peux... Serre-moi encore Nous les écorchés vifs On en a des sévices Les écorchés vifs On les sent les vis Maybe some of you wonder why I concentrate a lot on words .... well, without words you've got nothing. all that grammar, all those endings, it all counts for nothing without words ... lots of words. The more you engage with words, use words, speak words, write words, play with words .... the better you will get at all the rest of it. I promise. [email protected] |
AuthorLearn French in 88 years .. well, it's a long time, so you might as well enjoy yourself on the way. I hope you are enjoying all the sensible bits as well as the music, the games, challenges, odd diversions, rants, the roads less travelled and so on. I'm on the same road as well. Good luck to all of us. Archives ... monthly listing
September 2021
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