Sachet, chantez!

[muckefuck]

Three days of rain outside and anxiety at work is doing nothing for my bad mood. Let's try a poll!

What are your favourite songs with lyrics either partially or entirely in French?


Entirement en français:

1. "Pas assez de toi" (Mano Negra)
2. "L'aventurier" (Indochine)
3. "Les nuits d'été, Op. 7: I. Villanelle" (Hector Berlioz)

Partiellement en français:

1. "Games Without Frontiers" (Peter Gabriel)
2. "Brigadier Sabary" (Alpha Blondy)

Update: I almost said "favourite pop songs" but then decided to leave out the qualifier. And I'm glad I did, because I'm really enjoying everyone's classy choices. But don't be intimidated; as bunj's answer shows, even execrable American hipster "French" qualifies!

Comments

[bunj.livejournal.com]

Entirely:

La Mer - Charles Trenet
And then several selections from Carmen: La Habanera, the Children's Chorus, and Toreador.

Partially:

Psycho Killer - Talking Heads

Guess I don't know too many songs a la francais (though I had forgotten the Mano Negra song before you mentioned it). Just curious, what would your list for German be?

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

I'd have to give that some thought. Offhand, I can't think of many examples of non-German artists slipping German into their songs; can you? For songs entirely in German, the first that comes to mind is "Wenn der Morgen graut" from Element of Crime.

[bunj.livejournal.com]

Not offhand, but I can think of German artists who slip German into their English-language songs (like Yello in "Swing").

[cpratt.livejournal.com]

Pedantry alert! Yello aren't German - they're Swiss. :)

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Super-Pedantry Alert! Only if you're talking nationality. Ethnically, they're Swiss-German or German-Swiss.

[cpratt.livejournal.com]

For a good example of a non-German artist slipping German into his songs, try Chile's Tea Time [he's a rapper that used to sing with Los Tetas; look for a CD called XXX on the Rather Interesting label. It's trilingual rap!]

[mistress-elaine.livejournal.com]

Both Blur and Franz Ferdinand have included snippets of German in some of their songs. Also, David Bowie recorded both French and German versions of "Heroes" back in the seventies. The German version is OK-ish (probably because Bowie lived in Germany at the time); the French version is execrable.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

"ICH HEISSE SUPERFANTASTISCH! ICH TRINKE SCHAMPUS MIT LACHSFISCH!"

How could anyone forget those immortal lines?

As for English-language artists recording German versions of their songs, this was far more common in a bygone era. The Beatles, Johnny Cash, Petula Clark--you can find various examples here. The best I've heard, though, is Peter Gabriel, who do at least two entire albums in German. Interestingly, he often chose to preserve the rhymes and rewrite the lyrics to match, so the content is actually fairly different in German (although the basic theme is always the same).

[mistress-elaine.livejournal.com]

Yeah, and let's not forget Blur's classic "Du bist sehr schön, but we haven't been introduced", among other gems. Come to think of it, Blur also have a few snippets of French hidden away in some of their songs. No, they're not at all pretentious.

I vaguely remember hearing a few German Beatles songs when I was younger, and having a good laugh about them. ABBA sound awful in German. I'd expected better from a bunch of Swedes. And "The Wall" in German? Not sure I can stomach that. Ugh.

It's interesting hearing artists do different-language versions of their own songs. I nearly always prefer the original versions, though. Bowie in German is OK but far from great, just like Nena and Falco (to get really poppy for a moment) sound better in German than they do in English. I'll have to seek out Peter Gabriel's German-language stuff. I can't say I'm familiar with it.

[snowy-owlet.livejournal.com]

Isn't it a requirement of all goth/industrial bands to include German in at least one song on every album?

See: The Cruxshadows, VNV Nation, Front 242 ('cuz they don't speak German in Belgium!)

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Actually, they do.

[snowy-owlet.livejournal.com]

Once again, I parade my ignorance across LiveJournal.

Go me!

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

To be fair, it's one of the more obscure minority-language communities of Europe. I don't think even most Europeans would know that German had any official status in Belgium.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

I have to disagree on the Nena. Although I love to belt out "99 Luftballoon", the English lyrics are clearly better written. Compare the opening stanzas:

Hast du etwas Zeit für mich
Dann singe ich ein Lied für dich
Von 99 Luftballons
Auf ihrem Weg zum Horizont
Denkst du vielleicht g'rad an mich
Dann singe ich ein Lied für dich
Von 99 Luftballons
Und dass so was von so was kommt.

My rough English translation:

If you have some time for me
Then I'll sing a song for you
Of 99 balloons
On their way to the horizon
Maybe you're thinking of me just now
Then I'll sing a song for you
Of 99 balloons
And that such a thing comes from such a thing

Compare that to the English version:

You and I in a little toy shop
Buy a bag of balloons with the money we've got
Set them free at the break of dawn
Til one by one, they were gone
Back at base bugs in the software
Flash the message, something's out there
Floating in the summer sky
99 red balloons go by

No contest: The English sets the scene by describing the harmless activity which sets the rest of the events recounted in motion where the German is just repetitive meta-commentary. You could add the same verse to any song simply by replacing "von 99 Luftballoons" with "vom Leben und Tod" or "von mir und Bobby McGee" or whatever. It's completely generic and unnecessary.

The only example from Gabriel's œuvre which I would say falls this flat is "Schock den Affen", which is even more nonsensical than the original and, as a result, has less impact.

[mistress-elaine.livejournal.com]

I beg to differ. Yes, the English lyrics are more poetic, but to me they sound overwritten. I love the pureness and simplicity of the German lyrics. I'm a huge fan of simplicity in general. I guess it also has something to do with the fact that I knew and loved the German version of "99 Luftballons" long before I ever heard the English version. It's such an iconic song for me that any different version I heard of it could only be a disappointment.

And of course Nena just sounds more comfortable singing in her mother tongue.

[nibadi.livejournal.com]

Element of Crime ist eine deutsche Gruppe. Wenn ich mich recht erinnere, haben sie ein englisches Album versucht, danach haben sie nur nur deutsche Alben produziert. Der Sänger und Autor ist Sven Regener, der mittlerweile als Romanautor fast noch bekannter ist.

dreh dich noch einmal ...

[nibadi.livejournal.com]

es gab früher einige Amerikaner, die sich zeitweilig auf deutsch versucht haben:

Conny Francis *everybody is somebody's fool* auf deutsch *die Liebe ist ein seltsames Spiel*.

Peggy March
Paul Anka

selbst Elvis

haben sich auf deutsch versucht.

Die deutschen versuchen sich doch permanent auf Englisch, weil der Englische Musikmarkt einfach größer und ökonomisch attraktiver ist.

die wenigen erfolgreiche Beispiele:
Georgio Moroder mit Donna Summer *I feel love* *love to love* etc.
Silver Convention *fly Robin fly*
Nena wurde schon erwähnt
Falco ist Östereicher.