Although on a subject very serious to Brassens, this song
has a light-hearted tone with some quaint detail- e.g. the girls’ corns.
Coming from a humble background, Brassens always took the
part of the poor and oppressed and resented the richer classes that had the
power to control the rest. One group of
the underprivileged, which he defended in a number of his songs, was that of the girls
and women who made a living by prostitution.
In this “Lament of a prostitute”, the “filles de joie” are
presented as victims of this class conflict.
Brassens, as always, is angered by the hypocrisy of the upper classes
that denigrate street girls, while many men from their supposedly morally superior
ranks secretly use their services. In
this song, however, Brassens is amused by the irony of the merging of the
classes as a result of these brief “marriages”.
He believes that these liaisons secretly make intimate relatives of the
street girls and the snobbish kids who mock them.
Bien que ces vaches(1)
de bourgeois
Les appell'nt des
filles de joie(2)
C'est pas tous les
jours qu'ell's rigolent,
Parole, parole,
C'est pas tous les
jours qu'elles rigolent.
Car, même avec des
pieds de grues (3)
Fair' les cent pas le
long des rues
C'est fatigant pour les
guibolles(4),
Parole, parole,
C'est fatigant pour les
guibolles.
Non seulement ell's ont
des cors,
Des oeils-de-perdrix,
mais encor
C'est fou ce qu'ell's
usent de grolles(5),
Parole, parole,
C'est fou ce qu'ell's
usent de grolles.
Y'a des clients, y'a
des salauds
Qui se trempent jamais
dans l'eau
Faut pourtant qu'elles
les cajolent,
Parole, parole,
Faut pourtant qu'elles
les cajolent.
Qu'ell's leur fassent
la courte échelle
Pour monter au septième
ciel
Les sous, croyez pas
qu'ell's les volent(6),
Parole, parole,
Les sous, croyez pas
qu'ell's les volent.
Ell's sont méprisées du
public,
Ell's sont bousculées
par les flics,
Et menacées de la vérole,
Parole, parole,
Et menacées de la
vérole.
Bien qu' tout' la vie
ell's fass'nt l'amour,
Qu'ell's se marient
vingt fois par jour,
La noce est jamais pour
leur fiole,(7)
Parole, parole,
La noce est jamais pour
leur fiole.
Fils de pécore(8) et de
minus(9),
Ris pas de la pauvre
Vénus,
La pauvre vieille
casserole(10),
Parole, parole,
La pauvre vieille
casserole.
Il s'en fallait de peu,
mon cher,
Que cett' putain ne fût
ta mère,(11)
Cette putain dont tu
rigoles,
Parole, parole,
Cette putain dont tu
rigoles.
On the album « Les
trompettes de la renommée » 1961
|
Although
these middle class idiots
Call
them filles de joie
Their
life’s not a big laugh each day.
I
swear it, I swear it
Their
life’s not a big laugh each day.
For,
even with feet right for the job,
Pacing
the streets up and down
It
is tiring for spindly pins.
I
swear it, I swear it
It
is tiring for spindly pins.
Not
only the girls get hard corns,
And
soft corns but even more
It’s
crazy what shoes they get through.
I
swear it, I swear it
It’s
crazy what shoes they get through.
There
are clients, who - dirty oafs
Never
take dips in water
Still
they’ve got to be cuddled,
I
swear it, I swear it
Still
they’ve got to be cuddled.
Whether
girls use the short cut
To
get them to the heights of love
Believe
me the cash is hard-earned.
I
swear it, I swear it
Believe
me the cash is hard-earned.
They
are despised by the public,
They
are pushed around by the cops
And they’re under
threat of the
pox.
I
swear it, I swear it
And they’re under
threat of the
pox.
Although
they make love all their lives
And
marry twenty times a day.
Wedlock
isn’t theirs for the taking.
I
swear it, I swear it
Wedlock
isn’t theirs for the taking.
You,
son of silly and stupid,
Do
not laugh at our poor Venus,
Poor
skeleton in the cupboard.
I
swear it, I swear it
Poor
skeleton in the cupboard.
It
would’nt have taken much, m’lad,
For
this whore to be your mother.
This
whore that you’re making fun of.
I
swear it, I swear it
This
whore that you’re making fun of.
|
TRANSLATION NOTES
1)
ces vaches de
bourgeois – Vache is used like the noun « cow » in English as an
unpleasant word of abuse and a worthless person perhaps fat and and ugly. The word “cow” has no adjectival usage, but
the French word “vache” does have. When “vache” is used as an adjective, it tells us
that some-one is mean and unkind.
Examples in the French dictionary are: “Pas la peine d’être vache avec
moi” translated as “You don’t have to be mean with me” or “l’amour vache”
translated as “tough love”. I was
originally going to bring out the cruelty in the character failings of this
couple, but it is their stupidity that Brassens
talks of towards the end of the poem and so I accentuate that.
2)
Filles de joie –
I keep this in my translation, because outside France it is a term well-known
for “prostitute” in a French context.
Also I need a term referring to joy as the next line says that the girl
themselves did not have much fun.
3)
grues - Grue has 3 meanings:
·
A crane- the construction device for lifting weights–not applicable, of
course, here
·
A crane- the long legged bird. (See picture below)The
image may be of street girls showing of their legs, the height of which is
accentuated by high heels.
·
A slang word for tart/prostitute.
There is an expression in familiar speech: “faire le pied de grue”,
which, thinking about the crane bird’s movements, means flitting about the
place. Brassens may also be making a combined play on words to say these
restless feet are the feet of prostitutes. These different shades of meaning would
seem difficult to convey in translation
4) les
guibolles is the slang word for « legs” like the English slang version:
“pins.”
5)
grolles is a word used in dialects for “shoes”
6)
qu'ell's les volent- voler means
to steal but as in English it is used for not to give value for money e.g on n’est pas volé = you get your money’s
worth all right.
7) C’est pas pour ma fiole - This is an idiom which means “It is not for
me”
8) pécore – Originally this word meant the little animal in a flock. This meaning is
no longer used and “pécore” is used
exclusively as an insult to say that someone is silly and stupid e.g.
Taisez-vous, petite pécore. In this penultimate verse, Brassens is
referring back to the middle class pair whom he addressed so contemptuously in
the first verse.
9) Minus = This term is used to describe
some-one who is incapable and unintelligent .
10) vieille casserole - Une casserole is a saucepan, an everyday domestic item. However, perhaps because a standard practical joke is to secretly tie a pan to the back of a car etc to embarrass the occupants, it is used in French for a major scandal or embarrassment e.g. - traîner une casserole = have something to hide.
In the French dictionary, I found the following example of the word's usage:
In the French dictionary, I found the following example of the word's usage:
« s'il faut traîner
des casseroles alors tous peuvent reprendre les anciennes
casseroles et les faire traîner à nouveau”, which translates as:
« if we must be
haunted by a scandal - then all of us can drag up past scandals all over again.”
This is the meaning that I have preferred but other translators stick more closely with the word "saucepan" and see it as an insult for a woman as a mere receptacle, perhaps more particularly apt for a prostitute.
This is the meaning that I have preferred but other translators stick more closely with the word "saucepan" and see it as an insult for a woman as a mere receptacle, perhaps more particularly apt for a prostitute.
11) Il s'en fallait de peu,
mon cher, que cett' putain ne fût ta mère.
This line puzzles me. If the father of
the middle class young man whom Brassens is addressing had had sex outside his
marriage, the son cold have been close to having a different belle-mère/stepmother There is little danger of mothers being
wrongly attributed as fathers traditionally are. The Ancient Greek poet, Homer had the line “…they
tell me that I am the son of Odysseus, but it is a wise child that knows his
own father. Shakespeare had the line in
the Merchant of Venice Act 2 Scene 2:It is a wise father that knows his on
child.” Even in this age of gender
equality, it is difficult to adapt it to “It is a wise child who knows its own
mother”, as Brassens seems to imply.
Thank you for the excellent blog. Regarding translation note 11, perhaps Brassens is not being literal here, and means that the boy's mother could have been a prostitute if circumstances had been different. Another possibility is that the boy's father had sex with a/this prostitute, and that the boy could have been the result of this encounter, i.e. he would have had a different mother.
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