The ShadowMusic Web Community

A mildly bizarre interpretation of a favourite tune - anyone any idea what it's about?



Bill

GoldenStreet wrote:A mildly bizarre interpretation of a favourite tune - anyone any idea what it's about?

"Toi l'étranger" means "You, the foreigner", the song is about a migrant who struggle to integrate.

Les Chats Sauvages (The Wild Cats) were a quite popular band in France in the early sixties. They did many french covers of songs from Cliff & The Shads.

A more recent version of this song :



Didier

Words fail me.


(Make the most of it, doesn't happen very often.)

French translations of English lyrics are usually slightly different in meaning to the originals. Obviously, some of this is due to identical or similar words have differing meanings in the two languages, such as "Stranger", or "Etranger", in French, maning foreigner, whereas in English, it simply means someone who has not been encountered before, though he might well live in the next street and be our third cousin for all we know.

Some of the songs listed on the reverse of that French Pathé EP sleeve (presumably included on other releases) are intriguing.

There is "J'ai pris dans tes yeux", which my schoolboy French renders as "I am taken in your eyes", which could mean a lot of things.

But the one I like best on that sleeve is: "Ma p'tite amie est vache" which I can only translate (despite the lack of the indefinite article "une") as "My little (female) friend is a cow". Perhaps it comes out better as "You silly moo".

https://ibb.co/kcvNCx

I cannot get that to display automatically.

JimN wrote:There is "J'ai pris dans tes yeux", which my schoolboy French renders as "I am taken in your eyes", which could mean a lot of things.

"J'ai pris dans tes yeux" should be translated as "I took in your eyes", but really means "I have seen in your eyes".

French covers of english songs are rarely translations, they are often totally diffrerent. And it's the same the other way round. "Let it be me" lyrics are totally different from the original french song "Je t'appartiens" (I belong to you).

"Ma p'tite amie est vache" should be translated as "My girl friend is mean"...

Didier