![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldI bought the single of Kate Bush's song "And So Is Love" when I was in Montréal for the first time in 1997, and I bought Mylène Farmer's single "C'est une belle journée" when I visted Montréal for the second time in 2003, en route to Kingston and Queen's University. That sense of liberation might explain why I think of "C'est une belle journée" as a happy song.
Here's my rough, crude translation.
I'll grant you that the lyrics aren't very cheery. More, I'll agree with you that Wikipedia's article on the song, translated with reasonable awkwardness from the original French, and that the music video is nicely cheery.
Why is "C'est une belle journée" one of my favourite songs? Although I think that Farmer's breathy vocals over long-time collaborator Laurent Boutonnat's music is almost always nice, and that this particular song's bouncy--nay, joyful--tone is an accomplishment (if an incongruous one), much of my positive reaction to the song comes from its association with that second trip to Montréal in August of 2003. On that trip, I felt free for the first time since, well, my April 2003 trip to Toronto. (SARS was overrated.) The difference was that this time I knew I wouldn't be going back to Prince Edward Island. This single was on the wall in an Archambault, I picked it up, bought it, took it home and listened to it on the same portable CD player as in 1997, and found its optimism suited my mood: The glass might be half-empty, but it might well also be half-full, "Mordre l'éternité/A dents pleines" can be as much a gesture of defiance as surrender, and what's wrong with a well-composed elegy in any case?
Nothing's wrong with a good misreading. If anything, it can give a song added character. It can certainly guarantee it a placing on one's own personal soundtrack.
Allongé le corps est mort
Pour des milliers
C'est un homme qui dort...
A moitié pleine est l'amphore
C'est à moitié vide
Qu'on la voit sans effort
[. . .]
Oh philosophie
Dis-moi des élégies
Here's my rough, crude translation.
The dead man's body lies
but for thousands
it's a sleeping man
Half-full is the amphora
but it's half-empty
that's easy to see
[. . .]
Oh philosophy
tell me elegies
I'll grant you that the lyrics aren't very cheery. More, I'll agree with you that Wikipedia's article on the song, translated with reasonable awkwardness from the original French, and that the music video is nicely cheery.
Why is "C'est une belle journée" one of my favourite songs? Although I think that Farmer's breathy vocals over long-time collaborator Laurent Boutonnat's music is almost always nice, and that this particular song's bouncy--nay, joyful--tone is an accomplishment (if an incongruous one), much of my positive reaction to the song comes from its association with that second trip to Montréal in August of 2003. On that trip, I felt free for the first time since, well, my April 2003 trip to Toronto. (SARS was overrated.) The difference was that this time I knew I wouldn't be going back to Prince Edward Island. This single was on the wall in an Archambault, I picked it up, bought it, took it home and listened to it on the same portable CD player as in 1997, and found its optimism suited my mood: The glass might be half-empty, but it might well also be half-full, "Mordre l'éternité/A dents pleines" can be as much a gesture of defiance as surrender, and what's wrong with a well-composed elegy in any case?
Nothing's wrong with a good misreading. If anything, it can give a song added character. It can certainly guarantee it a placing on one's own personal soundtrack.
