Those who really knew him were his friends and family, including Sean Lennon, his son with Yoko. This week’s French pop song of the week, “L’éclipse,” is a French remix of Sean Lennon’s song “Parachute.” Sean, who speaks French, collaborated on the remix with French singer M (Matthieu Chadid), and the video below has a kind of offbeat humor Sean’s father was known for. Sean is wearing glasses and a hat.

Also below is a translation of the French lyrics (which differ from the English version). “Sauter du coq à l’âne” (”to jump from rooster to donkey”) is a French expression meaning “to jump from one subject to another.”

Sean Lennon & -M- l’éclipse
envoyé par LodanDruid. – Clip, interview et concert.

L’éclipse

By Sean Lennon and M

L’éclipse
C’est le remix . . .

On plane
L’amour léger dans l’âme
On a tellement de chance
On saute du coq à l’âne
La tête dans les étoiles
Une chanson est un jeu alors
Faisons de notre mieux
Faisons-le savoir

Si on s’eclipse ce soir
On le sait tous les deux
On se laissera porter
Comme dans nos rêves
Sur cette melodie
Elle nous suffit ce soir
À se croire immortel
Comme la nuit

Sensible
J’ai le coeur qui s’emballe
Il envahit mon âme
Je me croyais plus fort
Meme si ça m’est égal
Si la vie est un jeu
Lequel de nous deux
Est celui qui chante

Si on s’eclipse ce soir
On le sait tous les deux
On se laissera porter
Comme dans nos rêves
Sur cette melodie
Elle nous suffit ce soir
À se croire immortel
Comme la vie

Tum tum tum . . .

Si on s’eclipse ce soir
On le sait tous les deux
On se laissera porter
Comme dans nos rêves
Sur cette melodie
Elle nous suffit ce soir
À se croire immortel
Comme la vie

Tu du du du du du du . . .

Eclipse
It’s the remix . . .

We glide
Love so light inside
So much luck we have
We jump from this to that
Our heads are in the stars
A song is just a game so
Let’s do our best
And let everyone know.

If we disappear tonight
We both understand
We’ll let ourselves be carried away
Like in our dreams
On this melody
It’ll be enough for us tonight
To believe we’re immortal
Like the night.

Sensitive
With a heart that’s out of control
It invades my soul
I believe I’m stronger
Even if it’s all the same to me
If life is a just game
Which of the two of us
Is the one who sings?

If we disappear tonight
We both understand
We’ll let ourselves be carried away
Like in our dreams
On this melody
It’ll be enough for us tonight
To believe we’re immortal
Like life.

Tum tum tum . . .

If we disappear tonight
We both understand
We’ll let ourselves be carried away
Like in our dreams
On this melody
It’ll be enough for us tonight
To believe we’re immortal
Like life.

Tu du du du du du du . . .

France, as a center of wealth and culture, has for many years been a destination for immigrants, allowing it to absorb outside influences and, as a result, continually reinvent itself. Although some immigrants, especially those of North African origin, have had difficulty integrating into French life, there is a more hopeful side to this story. As in the United States, many people in France are committed to their country’s tradition of human rights and being a safe haven for foreigners. And France benefits economically and culturally from the energy and talent of its foreign-born citizens, as well as those who, despite being born in France and thus being French, are sometimes seen as other because of their family origins.

Such is the theme of this week’s featured pop star, Souad Massi. Born in Algeria in 1972, Massi had an eclectic musical background. Her parents loved traditional Algerian, French pop, and American soul music. Several of her family members played jazz. She learned guitar at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Alger and soon became known as a modern, passionate singer—a politically dangerous image at the time in Algeria. After an artistic director of Universal Music discovered her in 1999 at a French festival of Algerian women, she moved to France. Her music—usually in Arabic, sometimes in French, and occasionally in English—has been described as a blending of Algerian, French, and “Anglo-Saxon” musical traditions.

Below is a video of Massi singing “Talit El Bir.” It’s a longer, more developed version of a song that appears on her third Album, Mesk Elil (“Honeysuckle,” 2006). The lyrics are in Arabic, and she begins by saying in French, “Vous nous aidez un peu si vous avez envie. Je force pas.” (“Help us a little if you feel like it. I’m not forcing anyone.”)

Once upon a time, back in the ‘80s, Katerine Gierak was just a young girl in Paris. At five years old she enrolled in her first music class. Soon she started playing the flute and studying music theory. Then she took up the classical guitar, followed by the electric guitar. From 1999 to 2005 she studied music at the Sorbonne, hoping to become a music teacher. But she failed the CAPES, a French exam for teachers, and instead of accepting the failure as a temporary setback, she changed careers. She became a rock star.

Now heading the band Mademoiselle K, Katerine Gierak is a popular and distinctive voice in contemporary French rock. Here is a clip of her 2006 song “Jalouse” (”Jealous”) from the album Ça Me Vexe (”That Upsets Me”). Below is a translation of the lyrics.

Clip : “Jalouse”, Mademoiselle K. Roy Music
envoyé par roymusic. – Regardez plus de clips, en HD !
Jalouse

By Katerine Gierak
J’suis jalouse à en faire trembler les gens
A faire trembler mes jambes
J’ai plus qu’à plonger en silence
J’pourrais flotter inerte, tu t’en balance
Et ça me ronge, ça me pourrit
Ça me rend dingue, ça me fout en l’air
Quand je sais que tu t’envoies en l’air
De l’air, de l’air, de l’air

Et même si j’le savais pas
J’imagine tout, c’est encore pire
Tu pourrais tomber amoureux
Recommencer une vie à deux
Plus tu la désire et plus j’expire
Et ça me ronge, ça me pourrit
Ça me rend dingue, ça me fout en l’air
Quand je sais que tu t’envoi en l’air
De l’air, de l’air

Jalouse, jalouse
J’suis jalouse à en faire trembler les gens
Et même si c’est moi qui casse
J’m'en fout, j’veux pas qu’on me remplace
J’suis jalouse à en faire trembler mes jambes
J’m'écraserai bien sur l’autoroute
Mais tu t’en fout, t’es déjà loin . . .
Le pire, c’est d’être déjà trop loin

Est-ce que parfois des idées noires
Te traverse sans crier gare ?
Moi, j’en ai un peu tous les soirs
Pourvu que le temps les écrases
Est-ce que tu penses encore à moi
Comme je pense encore à toi ?
Est-ce que tu souffres autant que moi ?
Si c’est moins, j’te le pardonnerai pas

Jalouse, jalouse
Et même si c’est moi qui casse
J’m'en fout, j’veux pas qu’on me remplace
Non, j’veux pas qu’on me remplace
J’veux pas qu’on me remplace
I’m so jealous I make people tremble
I make my legs tremble
Now I only have to dive into silence
I could float without moving, you couldn’t care less
And it eats away at me, it rots me
It makes me crazy, it fucks me up
When I know you’re screwing someone
Air, air, air . . .

And even if I didn’t know it
I imagine everything, it’s even worse
You could fall in love
Start again the life of a couple
The more you want her, the more I die
And it eats away at me, it rots me
It makes me crazy, it fucks me up
When I know you’re screwing someone
Air, air, air . . .

Jealous, jealous,
I’m so jealous I make people tremble
And even if I was the one who split up
I don’t care, I don’t want someone replacing me
I’m so jealous I make my legs tremble
I’ll even crush myself on the highway
But you don’t care, you’re already too far away . . .
The worst, it’s to be already too far away

Do dark thoughts sometimes
Cross your mind without warning?
Me, I have a few of them every night
Hoping that time crushes them
Do you still think of me
Like I still think of you?
Do you suffer as much as I do?
If it’s less, I won’t forgive you

Jealous, jealous
And even if I was the one who split up
I don’t care, I don’t want someone replacing me
No, I don’t want someone replacing me
I don’t want someone replacing me

Thus were the origins of one of the most successful pop songs in American history. Popularized by Frank Sinatra, “My Way” has since been recorded by more than a thousand other singers. But as explained on this French television program, in France it wasn’t initially a big hit for Claude François, who cowrote the song with Jacques Revaux and Gilles Thibaut. The French lyrics are also completely different, expressing a weary routine in a relationship.

Below is a video of Claude François and Mireille Mathieu singing “Comme d’habitude” in 1973. By this time even Elvis had a version of “My Way.” François and Mathieu end this short version of the song with lines from Anka’s English lyrics.

Following the video is a translation of the original French song. (For a video in which Claude François sings all the French lyrics, click here.)

Comme d’habitude

By Claude François, Jacques Revaux, and Gilles Thibaut
Je me lève et je te bouscule
Tu ne te réveilles pas comme d’habitude
Sur toi je remonte le drap
J’ai peur que tu aies froid comme d’habitude
Ma main caresse tes cheveux
Presque malgré moi comme d’habitude
Mais toi, tu me tournes le dos
Comme d’habitude

Alors je m’habille très vite
Je sors de la chambre comme d’habitude
Tout seul je bois mon café
Je suis en retard comme d’habitude
Sans bruit je quitte la maison
Tout est gris dehors comme d’habitude
J’ai froid, je relève mon col
Comme d’habitude

Comme d’habitude toute la journée
Je vais jouer à faire semblant
Comme d’habitude je vais sourire
Comme d’habitude je vais même rire
Comme d’habitude, enfin je vais vivre
Comme d’habitude

Et puis le jour s’en ira
Moi, je reviendrai comme d’habitude
Toi, tu seras sortie
Pas encore rentrée comme d’habitude
Tout seul j’irai me coucher
Dans ce grand lit froid comme d’habitude
Mes larmes, je les cacherai
Comme d’habitude

Mais comme d’habitude, même la nuit
Je vais jouer à faire semblant
Comme d’habitude tu rentreras
Oui, comme d’habitude je t’attendrai
Comme d’habitude tu me souriras
Oui, comme d’habitude

Comme d’habitude tu te déshabilleras
Oui, comme d’habitude tu te coucheras
Oui, comme d’habitude on s’embrassera
Comme d’habitude

Comme d’habitude on fera semblant
Oui, comme d’habitude on fera l’amour
Oui, comme d’habitude on fera semblant
Comme d’habitude . . .
I get up and make you stir
You don’t wake up as always
Over you I pull the sheets
I’m afraid you’re cold as always
My hand strokes your hair
Almost despite myself as always
But you, you turn your back
As always

Then I get quickly dressed
I leave the room as always
All alone I drink coffee
I’m running late as always
Without a sound I leave the house
All is grey outside as always
I’m cold, I pull up my collar
As always

As always throughout the day
I’m going to play at pretending
As always I’m going to smile
As always I‘ll even laugh
As always I’m finally going to live
As always

And then the day will pass
Me, I’ll go home as always
You, you will have left
Not yet returned as always
All alone I’ll go to sleep
In the cold, large bed as always
My tears I’ll hide them all
As always

But as always even during the night
I’m going to play at pretending
As always you’ll come home
Yes, as always I’ll wait for you
As always you‘ll smile at me
Yes, as always

As always you’ll get undressed
Yes, as always you’ll come to bed
Yes, as always we’ll kiss
As always

As always we’ll pretend
As always we’ll make love
Yes, as always we’ll pretend
As always . . .

Have you ever wondered what it’s like to be at a French rock concert? Well, here you go: Matthieu Chedid, better known by his stage name M, singing “En tête à tête” (about five years ago in Paris). One of France’s most extravagant and innovative rock stars, M combines the driving, rhythmic motion of rock with the elegant evenness of the French language.

Below are the lyrics and a translation.

En tête à tête

By M
Ce matin j’lui presse des oranges
   mécaniquement
Les yeux encore un peu brouillés par le sommeil
J’me trouve nez à nez avec ce vers qui ne rime
   à rien
C’est vrai ce week-end je suis seul
   avec moi même

En tête à tête avec moi-même
Souvent j’me tâte pour trouver le thème
En tête à tête avec moi même
J’ai pas la force de dire je je je . . .

Il faut aimer pour comprendre
Nous aimer pour nous comprendre
Mieux aimer pour mieux comprendre
C’est vrai ce week-end je suis seul
   avec moi-même

En tête à tête avec moi-même
Souvent j’me tâte pour trouver le thème
En tête à tête avec moi même
J’ai pas la force de dire je je je . . .
En tête a tête
En tête a tête
En tête a tête
En tête a tête
En tête a tête
This morning I squeeze oranges
   without thinking
My eyes still a little blurry from sleeping
I face with this line that rhymes
   with nothing
It’s true I’m alone this weekend
   with myself

All alone with myself
I often hesitate to find the theme
All alone with myself
I don’t have the energy to say I, I, I . . .

We have to love to understand
To love ourselves to understand ourselves
Loving better to understand better
It’s true I’m alone this weekend
   with myself

All alone with myself
I often hesitate to find the theme
All alone with myself
I don’t have the energy to say I, I, I . . .
All alone
All alone
All alone
All alone
All alone

France has an environmental movement of its own, and in the last European legislative elections, in 2009, Les Verts (“The Greens”) won 16 percent of the vote in France. Today the country is aswarm in things écolo (“environmental”) and bio (“organic”). It even has a kind of “Al Gore” in the writer and television producer Nicolas Hulot, who has been successful in pressuring French politicians to address environmental issues and is well known for his book and film Le Syndrome du Titanic (click here for the trailer).

If France had an environmental anthem, it might be “Respire” by the French trio Mickey 3D. Led by singer and songwriter Mickaël Furnon (whose nickname is Mickey), the group released its biggest hit, “Respire,” in 2003 on the album Tu vas pas mourir de rire (”You’re Not Going to Die of Laughter”). This simple, upbeat, but gloomy song blends eerily with the animated video the group made for it.

Below are the video, the lyrics, and a translation (note: in France baby boys are said to be found in a cabbage patch).

Respire

By Mickey 3D
Approche-toi petit,
Ecoute-moi, gamin.
Je vais te raconter
L’histoire de l’être humain.
Au début y avait rien,
Au début c’était bien.
La nature avancait,
Y avait pas de chemin.

Puis l’homme a débarqué
Avec ses gros souliers.
Des coups de pieds dans la gueule
Pour se faire respecter.
Des routes à sens unique
Qui s’est mises à tracer.
Les fleches dans la plaine
Se sont multipliées.

Et tous les éléments
Se sont vu métrisé.
En deux temps trois mouvements
L’histoire était pliée.
C’est pas demain la veille
Qu’on fera marche arrière.
On a meme commencé
A polluer les déserts.

Il faut que tu respires,
Et ça c’est rien de le dire.
Tu vas pas mourrir de rire,
Et c’est pas rien de le dire.

D’ici quelques années
On aura bouffé la feuille.
Et tes petits enfants
Ils n’auront plus qu’un oeil
En pleins milieu du front.
Ils te demanderont
Pourquoi toi t’en as 2.
Tu passeras pour un con.

Ils te diront comment
T’as pu laisser faire ça.
T’auras beau te défendre
Leurs expliquer tout bas,
T’est pas ma faute à moi,
C’est la faute aux anciens.
Mais y aura plus personne
Pour te laver les mains.

Tu leur raconteras
L’époque où tu pouvais
Manger des fruits dans l’herbe
Allonger dans les prés,
Y avait des animaux partout
Dans la forêt.
Au début du printemps
Les oiseaux revenaient.

Il faut que tu respires.
Et ça c’est rien de le dire.
Tu vas pas mourrir de rire,
Et c’est pas rien de le dire.
Il faut que tu respires,
c’est demain que tout empire.
Tu vas pas mourrir de rire,
et c’est pas rien de le dire.

Le pire dans cette histoire,
C’est qu’on est des esclaves.
Quelque part assassins,
Ici bien incapables
De regarder les arbres
Sans se sentir coupable,
A motié défroqué,
100 pour cent misérable.

Alors voilà, petit,
L’histoire de l’etre humain.
C’est pas joli joli,
Et j’connais pas la fin.
On est pas né dans un chou
Mais plutot dans un trou
Qu’on remplit tous les jours
Comme une fosse à purin.

Il faut que tu respires,
Et ça c’est rien de le dire.
Tu vas pas mourir de rire,
Et c’est pas rien de le dire.
Il faut que tu respires,
C’est demain que tout empire.
Tu vas pas mourrir de rire,
Et ça c’est rien de le dire.

Il faut que tu respires.
Il faut que tu respires.
Il faut que tu respires.
Il faut que tu respires.
Come closer, little one.
Listen up, kid.
I’m going to tell you
The story of humankind.
At first there was nothing,
At first it was fine.
Nature was moving on
Without even a trail.

Then man showed up
With his enormous shoes.
Some kicks in the face
To gain respect.
One-way streets
That began to be drawn.
The arrows in the field
spread right along.

And all the elements
Were thought to be tamed.
Then before you knew it,
The story had turned.
Tomorrow’s not even close
To when we’ll return.
We’ve already begun
polluting the deserts.

You have to breathe,
And that’s easy to say.
You’re not going to die of laughter,
And that’s not easy to say.

Sometime in the future
This will all be our fault.
And your little children
Will have just one eye
In the center of their forehead.
They’ll ask you
Why you have two.
You’ll look like an idiot.

They’ll ask you how
You could let this happen.
They’ll be no point in defending yourself,
Explaining to them softly
That’s it’s not your fault,
It’s the fault of your ancestors.
But there will be no one anymore
To wash your hands.

You’ll tell them about
The time you could
Eat fruit in the grass
Lying down in the meadow,
Animals everywhere
In the forest.
At the beginning of spring
The birds would come back.

You have to breathe,
And that’s easy to say.
You’re not going to die of laughter,
And that’s not easy to say.
You have to breathe,
And tomorrow it’ll get worse.
You’re not going to die of laughter,
And that’s not easy to say.

The worst of this story
Is that we’re each a slave,
In some sense a murderer,
Now fully incapable
Of looking at trees
Without feeling guilty,
Half given up,
100 percent miserable.

Well, there it is, little one,
The story of humankind.
It’s not really pretty,
And I don’t know the end.
We’re not born in a cabbage
But rather in a hole
That one fills everyday
Like a pit of manure.

You have to breathe,
And that’s easy to say.
You’re not going to die of laughter,
And that’s not easy to say.
You have to breathe,
And tomorrow it’ll get worse.
You’re not going to die of laughter,
And that’s easy to say.

You have to breathe.
You have to breathe.
You have to breathe.
You have to breathe.

According to its MySpace page, La Féline is “a trio that likes pop, epic folk, beauty, strangeness, instrumental music, and B movies” (“un trio qui aime la pop, le folk épique, le beau, le bizarre, la musique instrumentale et les séries B”). But I prefer this description that lead singer Agnès Gayraud gave in an English-language interview.

We’re three people. A dark-haired girl, Agnès. who sings and plays guitar, gently leading the band, a grey-haired boy, Xavier, who plays keyboards, and a brown-haired boy, Stéphane, playing drums. We all live in Paris. We’re all looking for something—without knowing exactly what. We only agree on the fact we’re looking for it.

La Féline’s music is sometimes in French, sometimes in English. This song is in both, creating a Franco-American mélange in which French pop tradition wanders freely in the folksy, Wild West.

Below are the lyrics and a translation of the French.

HibOO d’Live : La Féline “Mystery Train” from Le-HibOO.com on Vimeo.

Mystery Train

By La Féline
Je suis montée dans ton Mystery Train
A ton côté, innocente et sereine
Alors, tu m’as tout raconté
J’ai tout quitté en montant dans ce train
Moi je voulais partager ton destin
Alors, on a tout partagé

Everybody loves somebody someday, someday
Everybody leaves the one he loves, you said

Autour de nous filait le paysage
Dans ses reflets, je voyais ton visage
Alors, on a tout traversé
Dessus les ponts, au dessous des nuages
Au bord des gouffres, évitant les orages
La mort, j’ai voulu m’en aller

Everybody leaves somebody someday, someday
Everybody leaves the one he loves, you said

Je suis tombée de ton Mystery Train
J’ai basé mon camp dans la plaine
Alors, j’ai voulu t’oublier
J’ai tout quitté en tombant de ce train
Je t’ai laissé seul à ton destin
Alors, tu m’as tout reproché

Everybody hurts somebody someday, someday
Everybody hurts the one he loves, you said

A l’heure qu’il est poursuis-tu ta course?
A quelle distance du gouffre?
Voila où je veux te parler
Dans les couloirs désertés que tu longes
Si tu me croises au milieu de tes songes
Alors, tu m’auras pardonnée

Everybody misses somebody someday, someday
Everybody missed the one he left, that’s what I say.
I boarded your Mystery Train
Next to you, innocent and serene
Then you told me everything
I left everything getting on the train
Me, I wanted to share your destiny
So we shared everything

Everybody loves somebody someday, someday
Everybody leaves the one he loves, you said

Around us flew by the landscape
In our reflections I saw your face
Then we crossed over everything
Over the bridges, under clouds
On the edge of the abyss, avoiding the storms
Death, I wanted to go away

Everybody leaves somebody someday, someday
Everybody leaves the one he loves, you said

I fell off your Mystery Train
I set up my camp on the plain
Then I wanted to forget you
I left everything falling off this train
I left you alone with your destiny
So you blamed me for everything

Everybody hurts somebody someday, someday
Everybody hurts the one he loves, you said

Are you still racing now?
How far from the abyss?
That’s where I want to talk with you
In the deserted passages you pass through
If you meet me in the middle of your dreams
Then you will have forgiven me.

Everybody misses somebody someday, someday
Everybody missed the one he left, that’s what I say.

Rare among contemporary French singers, Vanessa Paradis has a following in the United States, partly because she is the longtime partner of actor Johnny Depp, with whom she has two children. Paradis and Depp divide their time between Los Angeles and the south of France and also have property elsewhere. Depp was the cover artist for Divinidylle, her 2007 CD.

Paradis, now 37, has been famous for years as a singer and actor in France. Her first hit, “Joe le taxi,” was released in 1987 when she was 14 years old, and it became a number one song in 25 countries. She was instantly a kind of French Lolita, adored and scorned by the French public. Years later she is now often seen as a chic French rocker.

Here is Paradis doing an acoustic version of “Dans mon café” (“In My Coffee”) from her album Bliss (2000). The concert took place on November 22, 2009, in the historic Parisian theatre La Cigale. Before singing, Paradis says,

Vous me donnez soif . . . [from someone in the audience: “à ta santé] . . . merci . . . Cette chanson est dédiée à tout ce qu’on le sait . . . l’incendie prend dans leurs cœurs. On va laisser le feu les envahir, sans faire des dégats, sans extincteur, sans eau.

(You make me thirsty . . . [from someone in the audience : “to your health”] . . . thank you . . . This song is dedicated to everything we know . . . the fire takes hold in our hearts. We’re going to let the fire invade us, without damage, without an extinguisher, without water.)

Below are the lyrics and a translation.

Dans mon café

Lyrics by Didier Golemanas
Tu es le clown dans mon café
Le ballon rouge sur mon nez
Le magicien auditionné
Au plus grand cirque jamais monté

Des trapézistes s’sont ramassés
Des lionnes, de tigres dépareillés
Tu es le seul dans mon café
L’seul numéro qu’j'peux pas sucrer

Mais qu’as-tu fait des plus futés
De ceux qui me faisaient du thé
Du lait dont j’aurais dû douter
Le bel autodafé
Le bel autodafé
Que t’as fait lá
Dans mon café

Tu es bien le diable embarqué
Pas besoin d’me l’faire remarquer
La cuillère a beau tourner
T’es toujours là dans mon café

Même si j’ai pas fini d’jongler
Si j’ai pas assez répété
Avec toi c’est les yeux fermés
Tous ces couteaux qu’tu vas m’lancer

Qu’as-tu fait des plus affutées
De celles qui t’as jamais plantées
Des feux de bengale de chak’ côte
Le bel autodafé
Le bel autodafé
Que t’as fait lá
Dans mon café . . .
You are the clown in my coffee
The red balloon on my nose
The magician auditioned
at the largest circus ever erected

Trapeze artists fell down
Lions, tigers mixed up
You are the only one in my coffee
The only one I can’t rub out

But what did you do with the smartest ones
With those who used to make me tea
With milk I should have mistrusted
The beautiful auto-da-fé
The beautiful auto-da-fé
That you performed
In my coffee

You are indeed the devil aboard
No need to make it clear
Even though I stir the spoon
You are always in my coffee

Even if I don’t finish juggling
If I don’t practice enough
With you the eyes are closed
All those knives you’ll throw at me

What did you do with the sharpest ones
With the ones you never thrust in me
Bengal lights on either side
The beautiful auto-da-fé
The beautiful auto-da-fé
That you performed
In my coffee . . .

Although Francis Cabrel has been one of the best-selling songwriters in France since the late 1970s, he’s hardly had the typical life of a celebrity. Raised in the village of Astaffort, in the southwestern French department of Lot-et-Garonne, he still lives there with his longtime wife, Mariette. His first hit, “Petite Marie” (“Little Marie”; 1977), was dedicated to her.

Below is a video of Francis Cabrel performing “La Corrida” (“Bullfighting”), a song from his 1994 album Samedi soir sur la terre (“Saturday Night on Earth”), which sold three million copies. I love the tall, French windows at the back of the stage.

The lyrics describe the horror of bullfighting from the point of view of the bull, and the song shares with Cabrel’s other music a dreamlike quality and a yearning to say something that feels essential. Andalousie (Andalusia), mentioned below in the lyrics and translation, is a region in southern Spain known for bullfighting. The French expression “dormer sur ses deux oreilles” (“to sleep on both ears”) means to sleep deeply. In the song it’s used as a pun. After killing a bull the bullfighter is sometimes given its ears as a gift.

Francis Cabrel – La corrida
envoyé par dimigardien. – Regardez la dernière sélection musicale.

La Corrida

By Francis Cabrel
Depuis le temps que je patiente
Dans cette chambre noire
J’entends qu’on s’amuse et qu’on chante
Au bout du couloir
Quelqu’un a touché le verrou
Et j’ai plongé vers le grand jour
J’ai vu les fanfares, les barrières
Et les gens autour

Dans les premiers moments j’ai cru
Qu’il fallait seulement se défendre
Mais cette place est sans issue
Je commence à comprendre
Ils ont refermé derrière moi
Ils ont eu peur que je recule
Je vais bien finir par l’avoir
Cette danseuse ridicule…

Est-ce que ce monde est sérieux ?
Est-ce que ce monde est sérieux ?

Andalousie je me souviens
Les prairies bordées de cactus
Je ne vais pas trembler devant
Ce pantin, ce minus !
Je vais l’attraper, lui et son chapeau
Les faire tourner comme un soleil
Ce soir la femme du torero
Dormira sur ses deux oreilles

Est-ce que ce monde est sérieux ?
Est-ce que ce monde est sérieux ?

J’en ai poursuivi des fantômes
Presque touché leurs ballerines
Ils ont frappé fort dans mon cou
Pour que je m’incline
Ils sortent d’où ces acrobates
Avec leurs costumes de papier ?
J’ai jamais appris à me battre
Contre des poupées

Sentir le sable sous ma tête
C’est fou comme ça peut faire du bien
J’ai prié pour que tout s’arrête
Andalousie je me souviens
Je les entends rire comme je râle
Je les vois danser comme je succombe
Je pensais pas qu’on puisse autant
S’amuser autour d’une tombe

Est-ce que ce monde est sérieux ?
Est-ce que ce monde est sérieux ?

Si, si, hombre, hombre
Baila, baila
Hay que bailar de nuevo
Y mataremos otros
Otras vidas, otros toros
Y mataremos otros
Venga, venga a bailar…
Y mataremos otros
During the time I was waiting
In this dark room
I heard people having fun and singing
At the end of the corridor
Someone put his hand on the lock
And I dove into the daylight
I saw the commotion, the gates
And the people all around

At first I believed
I needed only to defend myself
But this place with no exit
I’m beginning to understand
They locked up behind me
They were afraid I was going back
I’m just going to end up doing
This ridiculous pastime . . .

Are these people serious?
Are these people serious?

Andalusia I remember
The meadows lined with cacti
I’m not going to tremble before
This nobody, this moron!
I’m going to catch him, him and his hat
Make them spin like a sun
This evening the bullfighter’s wife
Will sleep on both ears

Are these people serious?
Are these people serious?

I pursued their ghosts
Almost touched their ballerina shoes
They struck hard on my neck
So that I’d bow down
Where did these acrobats come from
With their paper costumes?
I never learned to fight
Against dolls

To feel the sand under my head
It’s crazy how good it can feel
I prayed so that everything would stop
Andalusia I remember
I hear them laugh as I groan
I see them dance as I die
I didn’t think anyone could have so much
fun gathered around a grave

Are these people serious?
Are these people serious?

Yes, yes, man, man
Dance, dance
You have to dance again
And we’ll kill others
Other lives, other bulls
And we’ll kill others
Come, come and dance . . .
And we’ll kill others

Although poet Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918) is not a pop lyricist, the words to one of his best-known poems, “Le Pont Mirabeau” (”The Mirabeau Bridge”), were put to music by Marc Lavoine, pictured above on the cover of his CD titled simply Marc Lavoine (2001). “Le Pont Mirabeau,” the first track on the CD, is a bridge in Paris that spans over the Seine River. Apparently Apollinaire had to walk over the bridge to get to the home of painter Marie Laurencin, his girlfriend from 1907 to 1912. It is also the bridge where poet Paul Celan likely killed himself in 1970. His body was found miles downstream.

Below is Lavoine, since the 1980s a successful French actor and crooner, singing “Le Pont Mirabeau.”

The poem has been translated into English many times and in many ways. Here are a few well-known attempts to translate it. Some of the differences come from the translators’ struggle to replicate the rhyme scheme in English without straying too far from the meaning in French. But a more literal translation, without regard to rhyme, would also be open to question. The meaning even in French is ambiguous (as this brief and useful summary of the poem, in French, points out).

Below is the text of the poem, as well as a more or less literal, though debatable, translation.

Le Pont Mirabeau

By Guillaume Apollinaire
Sous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine
Et nos amours
Faut-il qu’il m’en souvienne
La joie venait toujours après la peine

Vienne la nuit sonne l’heure
Les jours s’en vont je demeure

Les mains dans les mains restons face à face
Tandis que sous
Le pont de nos bras passe
Des éternels regards l’onde si lasse

Vienne la nuit sonne l’heure
Les jours s’en vont je demeure

L’amour s’en va comme cette eau courante
L’amour s’en va
Comme la vie est lente
Et comme l’Espérance est violente

Vienne la nuit sonne l’heure
Les jours s’en vont je demeure

Passent les jours et passent les semaines
Ni temps passé
Ni les amours reviennent
Sous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine

Vienne la nuit sonne l’heure
Les jours s’en vont je demeure
Under the Mirabeau Bridge flows the Seine
And our passion
Must I remember again
Joy always came after the pain

Comes the night, strikes the hour
The days go by, but I remain

Hand in hand, let’s stay face to face
While under
The bridge of our arms move
The waters so weary of our eternal gaze

Comes the night, strikes the hour
The days go by, but I remain

Love passes by like this flowing water
Love passes by
In the way that life lags
And hope brings violence

Comes the night, strikes the hour
The days go by, but I remain

The days pass, and the weeks pass,
Neither time past
Nor the passion returns
Under the Mirabeau Bridge flows the Seine

Comes the night, strikes the hour
The days go by, but I remain

As another hint of the upcoming books under our own imprint, we are starting today the French Pop Song of the Week. Writers live in the bubble of their own language, landscape, and culture. While waiting in a grocery store line or taking an escalator in a department store, French writers hear songs that Americans or Brits, for example, would not recognize. French music influences French writers, whether they wish it or not, just as growing up by a sea washes a permanent tint over a person’s sensibility.

There are a fair number of French singers who imitate Anglo styles, which is not surprising, as American and British music dominates the market in much of the world. But the French have tenaciously clung to music in their own language. Since 1994 at least 40 percent of songs on French radio stations have by law been required to be in French, and sales of French music in France, though varying from year to year, usually do not stray far from the percentage heard on the radio.

Is there anything distinctive about French pop music? Listening to the radio, I usually know before someone begins singing if the song is Anglo or French. The range of French pop is too broad to generalize, but there is often a romantic, epic, though ambivalent quality that settles in your spirit in some notable French way.

In French the word variété can mean “pop music,” so French pop music is called variété française. A great tradition within French popular music is the chanson à texte (literally “text song”), in which the words, often poetic, reflective, or otherwise engaging, have as much importance as the music. An example in the United States would be Bob Dylan; in France a famous chanteur à texte is Georges Brassens.

Our first French pop song of the week is “Mon amie la rose” (“My Friend the Rose”), sung by Françoise Hardy, one of the best-known singers of the French 1960s yé-yé era. The video, from 1965, has been viewed about 1.5 million times on YouTube. Below is a translation of the lyrics.

Mon amie la rose

Lyrics by Cécile Caulier
On est bien peu de chose
Et mon amie la rose
Me l’a dit ce matin
A l’aurore je suis née
Baptisée de rosée
Je me suis épanouie
Heureuse et amoureuse
Aux rayons du soleil
Me suis fermée la nuit
Me suis réveillée vieille

Pourtant j’étais très belle
Oui j’étais la plus belle
Des fleurs de ton jardin

On est bien peu de chose
Et mon amie la rose
Me l’a dit ce matin
Vois le dieu qui m’a faite
Me fait courber la tête
Et je sens que je tombe
Et je sens que je tombe
Mon cœur est presque nu
J’ai le pied dans la tombe
Déjà je ne suis plus

Tu m’admirais hier
Et je serai poussière
Pour toujours demain

On est bien peu de chose
Et mon amie la rose
Est morte ce matin
La lune cette nuit
A veillé mon amie
Moi en rêve j’ai vu
Eblouissante et nue
Son âme qui dansait
Bien au-delà des nues
Et qui me souriait

Crois celui qui peut croire
Moi, j’ai besoin d’espoir
Sinon je ne suis rien

Ou bien si peu de chose
C’est mon amie la rose
Qui l’a dit hier matin
We are really almost nothing
And my friend the rose
Told me that this morning
At dawn I was born
Baptized by the dew
I blossomed
Happy and in love
In the rays of the sun
I closed up at night
I woke up old

And yet I was very beautiful
Yes, I was the most beautiful
Of the flowers in your garden

We are really almost nothing
And my friend the rose
Told me that this morning
See the god who made me
Makes me bow down
And I feel that I am falling
And I feel that I am falling
My heart is almost bare
I have one foot in the grave
Already I am no longer

You admired me yesterday
And I will be dust
Forever tomorrow

We are really almost nothing
And my friend the rose
Passed away this morning
The moon last night
Watched over my friend
Me, in a dream, I saw
Dazzling and naked
Its soul that was dancing
Far beyond the heavens
And smiling at me

Believe, those who can believe,
Me, I need hope
Otherwise I am nothing

Or at least not much of anything
It was my friend the rose
Who said that yesterday morning

A long time ago, when I first heard the hardcore punk group the Dead Kennedys, my initial reaction was a plural word that begins with an a and has eight letters. What was the point, I thought, of being disrespectful toward a family that had two of its members assassinated?

Later I learned it was more than a cheap publicity stunt. The lead singer was Jello Biafra (Eric Reed Boucher), whose stage name derived from mixing a sweetened gelatin brand with a place known for starvation. The band’s name, while taking advantage of the shock effect, had little to do with the Kennedy family itself and more to do with highlighting the deification of the Kennedys that emerged after the assassinations. The band saw that moment as a time when Americans began to turn inward and become more self-centered, transforming them, in Jello’s words, into “corporate-serving rodents.”

Here’s a clip of a famous Dead Kennedys song, “Let’s Lynch the Landlord,” played live in San Francisco in 1980, as well as the first few lines of the lyrics.

The Landlord’s here to visit
They’re blasting disco down below
Sez, “I’m doubling up the rent
Cos the building’s condemned
You’re gonna help me buy City Hall”

But we can, you know we can
But we can, you know we can
Let’s lynch the landlord man

This was the era of slam dancing, of Jello throwing himself into the crowd. As I remember, getting spit on by Jello was a rite of passage. Jello famously said that the Dead Kennedys, or DK, would “continue to play together as long as it’s fun, as long as it continues to be dangerous.” But looking back a few decades now, it’s hard to see them as too dangerous, even if their concerts later became more aggressive and their crowds were infiltrated by right-wing thugs, something the band fought against by writing the song “Nazi Punks Fuck Off.” In the end I see DK as more than a group of left-wing young adults trying to shock and scream at the world; through a kind of harsh art infused with sarcasm and irony, they were able to witness the injustice and absurdity of life.

My favorite clip of Jello is an interview around 1980, when he was about 22 and right after the release of their classic album Fresh Fruit for Rotten Vegetables.

Through the wonders of technology and the Internet, we can now watch Jello grow up and grow older, eventually entering middle age. We see Jello running for mayor of San Francisco against Dianne Feinstein and attracting a lot of attention and voters (though not as many voters as drag queen Sister Boom Boom). We see him in an obscenity trial, in which the band is prosecuted for including a poster of the H. R. Giger painting “Penis Landscape” in the 1985 album Frankenchrist. We find that Jello has become a “spoken word” artist, reading in front of audiences, and a candidate for the presidential nomination of the Green Party, coming in second behind Ralph Nader.  And there are many, many clips of Jello continuing to sing hardcore punk, his aging body creating a jarring image against the violence of the music.

No one can stay young forever, and no one remains relevant forever. In videos Jello seems to have mellowed, though he has remained in a rough environment. In a club in 1994 Jello was attacked by a group of skinheads, who called him a sellout, kicking and seriously injuring him. The world can be a strange and unforgiving place.

Below is one last video of Jello Biafra, an interview in which he talks about the desperate state of record stores in the United States. If you replace the word “record” with “book,” he sounds like so many people in the publishing industry, as well as book lovers, who bemoan the loss of physical spaces for their passion, places where you can touch things, find things accidentally, and, as you get older, feel nostalgic. Here Jello seems almost old-fashioned, but there’s nothing wrong with that. You can’t stay 20 forever.

Like many people in France last week, I went to the opening of Gainsbourg (vie héroïque), a film about Serge Gainsbourg (1928-91), the French songwriter, provocateur, and cultural icon. It’s hard to imagine the American equivalent of Gainsbourg, who is as famous in his own country as Elvis Presley is in the United States. To describe his personality and public presence, I thought about combining Bob Dylan, Abby Hoffman, and Charles Bukowski, but any mélange of American personalities would lack the French sensibility of Gainsbourg and the French culture that he both embodied and challenged.

That Gainsbourg, an inventive and disturbing cultural force, was virtually unknown in the United States even during his lifetime reflects the cocooning effect of language. Gainsbourg sang literary and sometimes shocking lyrics and provoked traditional French citizens into a fury, but Americans, deaf to the French language, were left undisturbed and unaffected.

The French book blog Cafebook has a good review of the film from a French perspective. When the film finally makes its way to the United States, Americans will get a chance to see a bit of why he was one of the strongest cultural forces in France during the second half of the twentieth century (and will not see anything from his last decade, when he was older and often drunk and sometimes less than impressive). Americans will also understand how he is now summarized: representing a strain of French Jewish identity after Nazi-controlled France; leading a dissolute life of drinking and smoking that eventually killed him; dating among the most beautiful women of his era, including Brigitte Bardot; and writing songs with sophisticated lyrics (often interpreted by other French singers), some of which trespassed the accepted borders of French society. When in 1979 Gainsbourg recorded a reggae version of “La Marseillaise,” the French national anthem, he provoked a riot.

Although Gainsbourg had relations with many women, he is best known for his marriage to Jane Birkin, who, despite being British, sang and continues to sing in French. Their daughter, Charlotte Gainsbourg, is an actor and singer whose most recent album, IRM, was reviewed last week in the New York Times.

Here is the movie’s trailer. It seems at times more appropriate for a film called “The Sex Life of Serge.” The actual film is more subtle, artistic, and surrealistic, but alas, such is marketing.

For a glimpse of Gainsbourg in the 1960s, below is a video of “La Javanaise,” which he initially wrote for the singer Juliette Gréco.