Brel trans

Translating Jacques Brel into English is like trying to translate rap into French. It can certainly be done on a word-for-word basis, as long as the words actually exist and have not, like many of Brel’s, been made up for the occasion. But when words are used for reasons other than their precise meaning - for their sound, their rhythm, their tempo, their pitch inflections, their concordant or dissonant harmonies - they make no sense in an another language and have little musical effect. La Valse à mille temps, a study in words in waltztime ending with a virtuoso coda, is a particularly brilliant, particularly untranslatable example. Appended below are a brief summary of La Chanson de Jacky with its refrain in translation, a summary of Voir un ami pleurer, and translations of the refrain in its three stages of La Valse à mille temps.

Jacky’s Song

Even if I end up entertaining ageing women at Knokke-le-Zoute…I know that every night I’ll sing them my sad song of the time when I was called Jacky:

To be for just an hour an hour

To be for an hour an hour sometimes

To be for an hour nothing but an hour

good good to look at and stupid at the same time

Even if I end up a mafioso selling drugs and sex in Macao… I know that every night I’ll sing for an audience of old Chinese my song of the time when I was called Jacky:

To be for just an hour an hour etc

Even if I end up in paradise as a singer for women with white wings… I know that every night I’ll hear the angels sing my song of the time when I was called Jacky:

To be for just an hour an hour etc

To see a friend crying

Sure there are wars in Ireland…sure we walk on flowers… but, but to see a friend crying

Sure we lose sometimes and death is at the end…sure birds gets assassinated… but, but to see a friend crying

Sure there are cities ravaged by children of fifty years, sure we have no power to help…but, but to see a friend crying

…Sure we think we’re well in there and in fact we’re in the cold… but, but to see a friend crying

The Waltz in Thousand time

Refrain 1

At the first waltz time

All alone you are smiling

At the first waltz time

I am alone but I see you

And Paris which beats time

Paris which times our hearts

And Paris which beats time

Murmurs murmurs to me softly

Refrain 2

At the second waltz time

We are two you are in my arms

At the second waltz time

We both count one two three

And Paris which beats time

Paris which times our hearts

And Paris which beats time

Hums hums to us already

Refrain 3

At the third waltz time

We are waltzing at last all three of us

At the third waltz time

There’s you there’s love and there’s me

And Paris which beats time

Paris which times our hearts

Lets its joy burst out at last