Kinder, mir hobn simkhes-toyre

[sovay]

Toyre iz di beste shkoyre
Azoy hot der rebe mit undz geknelt

Alas, I am not dancing with a Torah this year. Somehow I suspect that sharing colds is not part of the festival spirit. Have some more Jacques Brel instead.

(Cut for more translations.)

La quête (The Impossible Dream)

To dream an impossible dream
To bear the sorrow of partings
To burn with a possible fever
To go where no one goes
To love to the point of tearing
To love even too much, even unwisely
To try without force or armor
To reach the unreachable star

Such is my quest
To follow the star
No matter my chances
No matter the times
Or my despair
And then to fight always
Without question or rest
To damn oneself for the gold of a word of love
I don't know if I will be this hero
But my heart would be peaceful
And the cities splashed with blue
Because one unhappy man

Still burned, though all burned out
Still burned, even too much, even unwisely
To reach, though he tore himself apart
To reach the unreachable star

L'amour est mort (Love Is Dead)

They have no more curses for one another
They puncture each another in silence
Hate has become their science
Cries have become their laughter
Love is dead, love is a waste
It's gone back to the seagulls
The great house is bruised
Doors slam every minute

They have forgotten that not long ago
They crossed Strasbourg laughing
They had a much less grand look
Than a grand place in the suburbs
They have forgotten the smiles
They would leave all around them
When I spoke of lovers
They were the ones I liked to describe

Toward noon, the shows open
That chip away some sounds
It's always the same pen of sheep
But the ewes are furious
He dreams about old mistresses
She invents her next lover
They see in their children nothing more
Than the flaws the other left there

They have forgotten the good times
When a little made the day smile
When he recited Hamlet to her
Bare as a worm and in German
They have forgotten that they lived
As two, they burned a thousand lives
When I spoke of beautiful lunacy
They were the two I meant

The piano is no more than furniture
The kitchen weeps a few sandwiches
And they seem like two dervishes
Spinning in the same building
She has forgotten that she sung
He has forgotten that she sung
He murders their overnights
In reading closed books

They have forgotten that in the past
They sailed from celebration to celebration
Left to invent at the top of their lungs
Celebrations that didn't exist
They have forgotten the virtues
Of famine and kissing
When they slept with two suitcases
But us, my dear
How are you doing?
How are you?

Sans exigences (Without Emergencies)

I was nothing more than her lover
I lived well from time to time
But little by little, less and less
I cursed away my last chance
To the thread of her indifference
I wanted only to bear witness
But I lacked the nerve
Because she saw me without emergencies
She believed me without needs

I guarded her least steps
I moved past, but I carried no weight
By chance, I found myself well
Living in my solitude with her
Then I became her habit
I became the one who returned
When she came back on her way out
And in seeing me without emergencies
She believed me without needs

Hot water never bites
But you can only bathe in it
And more and more, she could only
Chill and reproach
Though there may not be enough sun
Hot water is the same hot water
She confused weakness and patience
And in seeing me without emergencies
She believed me without needs

From no good alone to no good together
I came to pray to God about it
But well we know he's too old
And no longer the master of anything
I had to become arrogant
While trembling with lenience
My heart did not dare raise its hand
And in seeing me without emergencies
She believed me without needs

She left as though in flight
Like a bird that we discover
After it liked its bonds
One day when it spreads its wings
Is bored in our hands
She left as though on holiday
Since then the sky is a little heavier
And I am dying of indifference
And she believes she's covered in love

Jojo

Jojo
Here then are a few laughs
A few wines, a few blondes
It's a pleasure to tell you
That the night will be long
To come back tomorrow
Jojo
I can hear you roaring out
Some sea chanteys
Where the Bretons suppose
Saint-Cast must sleep
All the way down in the fog

Six feet under, Jojo, you're still singing
Six feet under, you're not dead

Jojo
This evening, like every evening
We will recreate our wars
You take back Saint-Nazaire
I will recreate the Olympia
At the bottom of the cemetery
Jojo
We speak in silence
About old youth
We know, the two of us
That the world is asleep
For want of recklessness

Six feet under, Jojo, you're still hopeful
Six feet under, Jojo, you're not dead

Jojo
Laughing, you give me
The news from down below
I say, death to the bastards
Worse bastards than you
But in better health
Jojo
You know the names of the flowers
You see how my hands tremble
And I know you are the one who weeps
To drown out of modesty
My poor common ground

Six feet under, Jojo, you're still my brother
Six feet under, Jojo, you're not dead

Jojo
I leave you in the morning
For some kind of job
Among some drunks
With amputated hearts
Who open their hands too much
Jojo
I'm not going anywhere
I'm dressed in our dreams
Orphaned to the gills
But happy with knowing
That I still came to you

Six feet under, Jojo, you're not dead
Six feet under, Jojo, I love you still

J'arrive (I'm Coming)

From chrysanthemums to chrysanthemums
Our friendships are bound away
From chrysanthemums to chrysanthemums
Death hangs our Dulcineas
From chrysanthemums to chrysanthemums
Other flowers do what they can
From chrysanthemums to chrysanthemums
Men cry, women weep

I'm coming, I'm coming
But what I would have loved
To drag my bones one more time
Into the sunlight, into the summer
Into the spring, into tomorrow
I'm coming, I'm coming
But what I would have loved
To see one more time if the river
Is still a river, if the port
Is still a port, to see myself there again
I'm coming, I'm coming
But why me, why now
Why so soon and where am I going?
I'm coming, of course I'm coming
But what I have ever done beyond arrive?

From chrysanthemums to chrysanthemums
Each time more solitary
From chrysanthemums to chrysanthemums
Each time more superfluous

I'm coming, I'm coming
But what I would have loved
To take a lover one more time
As one takes a train, to be alone no longer
To be elsewhere, to be well
I'm coming, I'm coming
But what I would have loved
To fill with stars one more time
A body that trembles and falls dead
Burned up with love, the heart in ashes
I'm coming, I'm coming
It's not even that you're early
It's that I am the one who's late
I'm coming, of course I'm coming
But what have I ever done beyond arrive?

Le plat pays (The Flat Land)

With the North Sea for its last wasteland
And waves of dunes to stop the waves
And wavelike rocks that the tides overtake
That never lose heart at low tide
With an infinity of mists to come
With the wind from the east—hear how it holds
The flat land which is mine

With cathedrals for singular mountains
And black belltowers for maypoles
Where devils in stone lift up the clouds
With the thread of days for a singular voyage
And paths of rain for singular goodnights
With the wind from the west—hear how it desires
The flat land which is mine

With a sky so low that a canal lost itself
With a sky so low that you are humbled
With a sky so grey that a canal hanged itself
With a sky so grey that it must be forgiven
With the wind from the north that comes to rend
With the wind from the north—hear how it snaps
The flat land which is mine

With Italy that comes down from the Escaut
With blonde Frida when she becomes Margot
When the sons of November return to us in May
When the plain smokes and trembles in July
When the wind is in our laughter, when the wind is in the wheat
With the wind from the south—hear how it sings
The flat land which is mine

Au suivant (Next)

"Next! Next!"
Stark naked, with my towel for a loincloth
I was blushing all over my face, soap in hand
"Next! Next!"
I was just twenty and there were a hundred and twenty of us
To be next after those we followed
"Next! Next!"
I was just twenty when I lost my innocence
In the traveling whorehouse of an army in the field
"Next! Next!"

Me, I really would have liked a little tenderness
Or just a smile or to take a little time
But—"Next! Next!"
It wasn't Waterloo, no, and it wasn't Arcole
It was the time I regretted missing out on school
"Next! Next!"
But I swear hearing that sergeant slap our backsides
Those are the blows that make you an army of impotents
"Next! Next!"

I swear on the head of my first case of pox
Ever since, that's the voice I hear all the time
"Next! Next!"
That voice that smelled like garlic and cheap alcohol
That's the voice of nations, that's the voice of blood
"Next! Next!"
And ever since, each women as she yields to me
In my too-thin arms, seems to murmur to me
"Next! Next!"

All the followers in the world should take hands
As I cry out in delirium at night
"Next! Next!"
And when I'm not delirious, finally I'm able to say
It's more of a humiliation to be followed than to follow
One day I'll make myself a legless cripple or a good sister or a hanged man
Anything, finally, so I will never again be
The next, the next

Les bonbons (Candy)

I brought you candy
Because flowers die
Besides, candy is so good
Yes, flowers are more attractive
Especially when they're budding
But I brought you candy

I hope we can go for a walk
And madame your mother won't say a thing
We'll watch the trains go by
At eight, I'll take you home
What a beautiful Sunday for this time of year
I brought you candy

If you knew how proud it makes me
To see you on my arm
People look at me sideways
And some even laugh behind my back
The world is full of jerks
I brought you candy

Oh, yes, Germaine isn't as good as you
Oh, yes, Germaine isn't as beautiful
It's true that Germaine has red hair
It's true that Germaine is cruel
You're right a thousand times
I brought you candy

And here we are on the Grand' Place
They're playing Mozart at the kiosk
But tell me it's by accident
That your friend Leon is here
If you want me me to give up my seat
I had brought you candy . . .
Well, hello, Mademoiselle Germaine

I brought you candy
Because flowers die
Besides, candy is so good
Yes, flowers are more attractive
Especially when they're budding
Hey, I brought you candy

Comments

[wyldemusick.livejournal.com]

And Westlife making it even sicklier. There's also a video of Nirvana hacking their way through the song as well, which is truly weird.

[sovay]

And Westlife making it even sicklier.

With singable subtitles!

(Congratulations, you have precipitated the need for a WTF? icon.)

[wyldemusick.livejournal.com]

It does generate rather a Whiskey Tango Foxtrot response doesn't it?

The Nirvana video of their performance of "Seasons In The Sun" also generates that sort of response but for other reasons.

You should see the stuff that comes up in my LJ at times....

[sovay]

You should see the stuff that comes up in my LJ at times....

Speaking of crazy barnstorming music, do you listen to Gogol Bordello?