relation Cohen-chansonniers, does Cohen know Barbara's work

lightning · Post by **lightning** » Tue Jan 10, 2006 1:48 am

Though I don't speak any Spanish could you recommend a few song titles and tell me briefly what she sings about? I listened to a few mp3s, found her voice strong and velvety but the material rather conventional. As for music of Brasil the score from Black Orpheus is all I know and love. From what I heard of the lovely Maria Bethania I would think she is destined to remain a local star like Barbara, not a global music figure like Leonard
Cohen.

Antonio · Post by **Antonio** » Tue Jan 10, 2006 2:18 am

Lightning:

Maria Bethania is brazilian, so she speak portuguese. Her songs are those of bossa nova and samba-cançao repertoire. The range of the lirics is also varied: love songs, songs about saudade or the sentiment of longing and soft despair; there are also experimental songs in the movement tropicalia; it's hard to resume cause brazilian music is so many things at the same time; sometimes the music is conventional, but I found that something speaks us beyond the traditional and conventional lirics, a life experience that underlies songs and trascende them.
I guess Barbara and Bethania are not strictly local phenomenons: Barbara has lots of admirers in Japan (including a japanese web), for example, and Bethania is well known in Europe, and very loved here in Spain, I think.

Best wishes

lightning · Post by **lightning** » Tue Jan 10, 2006 4:07 am

As if by cosmic coincidence one of our premium TV channels, Sundance, broadcast Maurice Béjart, "Into the Light" a filmed documetary about choreographing a ballet based on Bach, Barbara and Brel. They danced to L'Aigle Noir, Chapeau Bas, and others songs I'm not familiar with. Large images of Barbara and Brel were projected behind the dancers. At one point the dancers carried little boxes with small TV screen images of Barbara's face. Bejart knew Barbara personally and said she was his dark light. The film was in French with subtitles. How weird to see it at this time!

Tchocolatl · Post by **Tchocolatl** » Tue Jan 10, 2006 5:43 am

Antonio, I wrote this somewhere here in October 2004. (I quote myself now - wow.)

"OK, as I figure that I am a lot that samba
I consider myself as an as white as black fan of Leonard Cohen."

So I guess I have an idea of what you feel about that music.

Probably, you would like Bïa

nila · Post by **nila** » Tue Jan 10, 2006 6:01 pm

As a great fan of french chanson whose disc collection started with Brel (I’ve got all of Brel, Barbara, Brassens and many others), I wonder why nobody named here Léo Ferré, the greatest French chansonnier ever… A french friend who loves Ferré played me some of Cohen’s songs, I immediately bought all his discs…
Nila

Antonio · Post by **Antonio** » Tue Jan 10, 2006 7:25 pm

Nila:

of course I don't forget the great Ferré, and I apologize for it. I have been watching again a dvd of him, a concert, "Léo Ferré" au Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. Combien de fois ne le je vu! I love such songs as "La vie d´artiste" (do you know the cover from Barbara?), "La vie moderne", "La mémoire et la mer", etc. There is also an interview posted somewhere in internet where Brel, Brassens an Ferré talked in radio program. Sometimes, joking with my friends, I say Ferré, Brel and Brassens were the three musketeers of french chanson. But, voilà, D'artagnan (Barbara) was a woman!!!
I really enjoy Ferré, thanks for give him here

Antonio

nila · Post by **nila** » Tue Jan 10, 2006 8:57 pm

YESSSSS!
Vive Léo!!!!
of course I know this DVD...
and the interview, I have an old radio cut.
Greetings,
Nila

Tchocolatl · Post by **Tchocolatl** » Tue Jan 10, 2006 11:44 pm

This thread begins to look like the twin of this one.

viewtopic.php?p=57081&highlight=l%E9o+ferr%E9#57081

lightning · Post by **lightning** » Wed Jan 11, 2006 12:41 am

Does anyone who knows Barbara know what "A Mourir pour mourir" means? To die in order to die? For the sake of dying? It doesn't make sense to me. It's trouble like this an anglophone has with Barbara.

lizzytysh · Post by **lizzytysh** » Wed Jan 11, 2006 12:45 am

Imagine the trouble that other tongues have with Cohen

! Even though I can't attempt a fair meaning without the context of the rest of the song, this one seems elementary, when viewed via the milieu of Leonard's songs

. Definitely not unique to Barbara this 'problem'

.

~ Lizzy

nila · Post by **nila** » Wed Jan 11, 2006 1:48 am

yes indeed... as a German who is anyways very familiar to French (much more than to English… I apologize for all the faults that there may be in my postings, I wouldn’t notice them…), I would not be able to give a definitive translation for "à mourir pour mourir"... but I think that even for a French it's ambiguous.

Tchocolatl · Post by **Tchocolatl** » Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:26 am

Nila, why don't you go to Berlin for the event, there, they could whip you or kick your ass for all and every English mistake you may have done here.

If you are a bit more maso you can be beaten for all mine also - I give it to you - if you want. And after every volunteer could go hug a tree. Very green people you are in Germany, it is well known.

Lightning if you have difficulty with this, what would you do with :

"Allez donc vous faire lanlaire," (from the same song)

I wonder.

Antonio · Post by **Antonio** » Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:53 am

Uff!

Difficult question the one of tanslation! Traduttore tradditori, as is said. Sometimes french lyrics are so ambigous you can only feel intuitively and live around the meaning. What do you think about this?

"C´est la fatigue qui me vertige... vagabonde" ("Fatigue", Barbara).

Is it a real neologism? le verbe vertiger does not exist in french, but it express deeply the idea of falling to some kind of emotional abyss.

Hard work the one of the translator!

lightning · Post by **lightning** » Wed Jan 11, 2006 3:55 am

'Allez donc vous faire lanlaire" I found in one of my argot dictionaries, translated as "Go to glory," and "me vertige" may be a contraction of "me donne le vertige" or gives me vertigo, dizziness. I can imagine the trouble non-anglophones have with Cohen or Dylan and the kind of distortions and projections that occur.
The funniest mistranslation I've found is on Rod McKuen's issue of a Brel LP with Amsterdam where the English translator translates "ramenent leurs bataves" as "sire little bastards." It means "lead their ships back." What an embarassment! Same translator for La Fanette heard "Si elles en souviennt les vagues vous diront" as "the sky remembers......".
But, though much is lost in translation, even more is lost in lack of translation which is why I keep translating.

lightning · Post by **lightning** » Wed Jan 11, 2006 4:14 am

À mourir pour mourir Musique: Barbara

------------------------------------------------------------------------

A mourir pour mourir
Je choisis l'âge tendre
Et partir pour partir
Je ne veux pas attendre
Je ne veux pas attendre

J'aime mieux m'en aller
Du temps que je suis belle
Qu'on ne me voit jamais
Fanée sous ma dentelle
Fanée sous ma dentelle

Et ne venez pas me dire
Qu'il est trop tôt pour mourir
Avec vos aubes plus claires
Vous pouvez vous faire lanlaire

She says she wants to die when she's still young and beautiful and doesn't want anybody to talk her out of it. What does "A Mourir pour mourir" mean, skilled Cohen interpreters? To die just to die?

relation Cohen-chansonniers, does Cohen know Barbara's work

french chanson

léo

Barbara