Elvy : I’m a French student, quite lost in life (who isn’t at some point ?), an eternal dreamer mostly paying attention to unimportant things, and spending most of my free time having weird ideas, like this one, that has been running in my head for several months now. And the best way to free yourself from this kind of idea is generally to bring it to life, so here we are 😀
My level of English is approximative (French people are not precisely known for their linguistic habilities, and I’m no exception ! We’re probably too busy trying to master our own weird language…), I lack vocabulary, I’m not a brilliant orator, and my translations will not be perfect or professionnal or anything. No translation is perfect anyway !
And outside of this site, of course, I have a lot of other hobbies, like reading, drawing, writing, and I listen to pretty much all kinds of music, from a lot of countries, with a preference for rock music. I am very interested in other languages and other cultures, and I try to discover more and more stuff from many different countries. (Maybe that’s my hipster side, like “I so dig this underground Bulgarian band that I’m the only person to know !”)
So now, why create this blog, that will take me waaaaaaay too much time, that I could use for something a little more rewarding ? Well first because there’s this idea that I can’t get out of my mind. But it’s a little bit deeper than that. It is not a sort of nationalist crusade either (like “Ya’ll are gonna see how France kicks your ass”). In fact one day, a few months ago, I was listening to a French song, I don’t remember which one, and I was like “wow, it’s so sad that there’s not more people who know this and are able to enjoy it !”
And why is there so few French songs that are known worldwide ? Well first, because they are generally given less attention, less airtime, less interest. But why ? This is not only the case for French songs by the way : this problem exists for pretty much every language that isn’t English. And this is the core of the situation : what isn’t in English doesn’t really exist. I’m exagerrating a bit, but to me, it’s true that all of us (whether English is our native language or not) have a tendancy to rather listen to music that we can understand. Because, honestly, who, apart from native French speakers, can say that (s)he listens to French songs ? On the other hand, nearly everybody understands English, and when people want to be famous even outside of their own country, they sing in English ; which is kind of sad to me, because every language is beautiful and every language deserves to be sung. Even the languages that nearly nobody respects (yes I’m talking about you German, I stand with you bro, keep on rocking !).
So I notice two main problems that prevent non-English songs to make it to the light : 1) Because it is not in English, less people understand it, and lyrics being a very important dimension to a song, only a few will think about listening to these songs ; 2) It is not very famous, and there are not so many sites who guide people and make them travel in this huge galaxy of music. So people are lost, they don’t know where to begin, where to look at, and in the end they miss out a lot of beautiful stuff.
So here I am, ready to help you, who want to discover many cool French songs. My blog (if I have the motivation to do it properly) will try to resolve these two problems. On the one hand, I will select for you a large variety of French songs of all genres, all periods, all themes, and classify them so that you can find your way in all of this. And if I have the time to do it, I will brievely introduce every artist (every song ?) to put things into perspective. On the other hand, I will give you the link to every song, and also the link to the translation into English (in case I don’t have the time to do one myself : better something than nothing !), with additionnal notes to explain you things that are a little too complex (when there is a reference to a French event or a French character, for example).
I will focus mainly on what could be called “classical” French songs, because in my head I’m a little bit old 😉 so if you are interested in more contemporary French music, of course you can request some songs and I will do it for you, but otherwise there will be a lot more old songs than new songs.
Voilà, this is the end of this presentation ! I hope that this blog will be useful for you guys, and honestly, even if it helps only one or two people, i’ll still be honored, so don’t hesitate to let me know if it’s the case ! There must be a kind of forum under every blog, so it must be possible for you to comment. Don’t hesitate also to ask question, give advices, suggest a song, I’m open to many things 🙂
French Music into English 