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Posted: Thu Feb 17, 2005 4:13 pm
by linda_lakeside
Hi Kush,

Lovely lines and words to live by.

Linda.

Posted: Thu Feb 17, 2005 11:18 pm
by Anne.A.L
That song, Les Bons Moments -- I find the English version is way, WAY better than the French. For once something is gained in translation.

Posted: Fri Feb 18, 2005 12:32 am
by Kush
I read somewhere that he taught himself English to be able to translate his own songs and sing them in English. Except La Boheme I have the English versions of I guess all of his most famous songs - about 40 or so.

Here is another favorite of mine:



The Painted Child


I am the painted child, I am the mischief maker
The beggar at the feast, the fiddler at the ball
I know the words of songs, I am the Sabbath breaker
The caller in the night, the writing on the wall.

The name on the wall is me
The cry in the dark is me
The mark of the child I sign
The name on the wall

I am the painted child, the child who is a stranger
And those who once came near, now turn and walk away
And everywhere is fear and everywhere is danger
These are the masks we wear, these are the parts we play

I am the painted child, the crier and the chorus
I strike upon the drum for funerals and games
And others who have come in centuries before us
To fill the world with noise and dance among the flames

The name on the wall is me
The cry in the dark is me
The mark of the child I sign
The name on the wall

I am the painted child, the clown and the protester
A creature of the time and seldom what I seem
And call me what you will, a renegade or jester
But still I chill your heart, and still I haunt your dream

I'll sing beside your grave, half-minstrel and half-mourner
I'll sing of years gone by and bridges never crossed
I am the painted child who stands on any corner
I am the child you loved, I am the child you lost.

The name on the wall is mine
Look in to my face and see
The strange painted child
is me.

Posted: Fri Feb 18, 2005 6:16 am
by bee
Thank you Kush, this song is a song of great beauty- the soul of the artist- just incredibly moving.
I guess he had to learn French as well- sice he was an Armenian.

Posted: Fri Feb 18, 2005 10:12 pm
by Anne.A.L
No, he is French, born and raised in Paris. It's his parents who were born in Armenia.

Posted: Fri Feb 18, 2005 11:08 pm
by linda_lakeside
Hi Anne A.L.,

Just a hello, gotta run. See ya.

Linda :D

Posted: Sat Feb 19, 2005 3:55 am
by Tchocolatl
Kush wrote:Tchoc..I like the statement of yours.....it reminds me of something Carl Sagan wrote very succinctly of the modern age "There is a mismatch between our wisdom and our technology".
Kush, it seems to me that there is a mismatch between our wisdom and our technology since the club. :wink:. Or would I say : wisdom? What wisdom? Ah! yes! (dumbo me - I have learned a new English word here. Yeah) the matter He sank beneath like a stone. No not that one I guess. Bahhh I am a foul and an optimistic, besides the big grey non-sense, I see Wisdom (with a big "W") everywhere like the little grass blade that pierces concrete. I think wisdom will grow over all this, some day. Or, should I say, I hope.

I liked Carl Sagan a lot. He left us too young. I like his name a lot too. The sound of it, I mean. This thing of the sound of the names, some day I'll have to go more deeply into the question.

Posted: Sat Feb 19, 2005 4:02 am
by Tchocolatl
Aznavour has fans around here! :D I like him very much too. I think he is sharing with Leonard Cohen the same talent of "acting" a song, not just sing it.

Murat I'll come back to you regarding the act of will you are talking about. I do not feel like it right now. OK? :)

Posted: Sat Feb 19, 2005 5:07 am
by Tchocolatl
Ah! Kush, look at this, it is comforting : http://www.carlsagan.com/

Bee, on the CD "Earth From Above" (the music of the movie they made with the photos) the first song, called "Genesis" is an old Armenian song. Very moving, very beautiful.

Tom.d, your project is interesting, I hope it is progressing well.

Tom S. I use to say that Leonard Cohen is not easy.

This "legendary" thing seems to be a signature of his persona in every culture. He is the "legendary Leonard Cohen" in mine also. I wonder in how many countries one can read that LC is "legendary". I read it in an article about DH from (?) Was it Poland? I am curious to know in how many countries, however. Somebody may have some statistics about this, somewhere.

Posted: Sat Feb 19, 2005 9:53 am
by bee
Tchoco- I don't have that CD, but I'll look it up.
Certainly Aznavours parents escaped from slaughter , Anne must be right- he perhaps was born in France, but I am quite sure the parents spoke armenian to him. He must've had a great influence for the armenian culture trough them.

Posted: Sat Feb 19, 2005 10:00 am
by tom.d.stiller
Tchocolatl wrote:Tom.d, your project is interesting, I hope it is progressing well.
It is, though it's very hard to get all the information about Abraham Moses Klein that I'd need. Some crucial details are not even known, except to his family and a handful of very close friends. Both groups, however, are very "kleyn" these days... :?

tom

Posted: Sun Feb 20, 2005 1:57 am
by Kush
Tchoc.....Carl Sagan's books were a huge influence on me, quite possibly the biggest. (but one always has to discard influences and move forward else you get stuck... :) ). Science's greatest communicator and first popstar. Thanks for the link....I see that it is considerably changed since I last saw it.

Aznavour wrote a very personal song 'They Fell' about Armenia.
BTW, in college I once roomed with a Turk and an Armenian-Russian so you bet we had some lively discussions late into the night. :)

as best as I can remember the words....

They fell that year they vanished
From the earth,
Never knowing the cause
Or what laws they offended,
The women fell as well
And the babies they tended.
Left to die left to cry
All condemned by their birth.

They fell like rain
Across the thirsty land,
In their hearts they were slain,
In their god still believing
All their pity and pain,
In that season of grieving
All in vain, all in vain
Just for one helping hand.
For no one heard their prayers,
In a world bent on pleasure
From other peoples cares
They simply closed their eyes
They create a lot of sound
In jazz and night time measure
The trumpets screamed till dawn
To drown the children’s cries.

They fell like leaves
Its people its prime,
Simple man kindly man,
And no one knew his crime
They became in that hour
Like a small desert flower
Simply covered by the silent wind
In sands of time.

They fell that year
Before cruel foe
They had little to give
But their lives and their passion,
And their longing to live
In their way in their fashion
So their harvest can thrive
And their children can grow.

They fell like flies
Their eyes still full of sound
Like a dove in its flight
In the path of rifle
That falls down were it might,
As if death were a trifle
And to bring to an end
A life barely begun.

And I am of that race,
Who died in unknown places
Who perished in their pride,
Whose blood in rivers ran,
In agony and fright
With courage on their faces
They went in to the night,
That waits for every man.
They fell like tears
And never knew what for
In that summer of strife
Of massacre and war
Their only crime was life
There only guilt was fear
The children of Armenia
Nothing less nothing more.

Posted: Mon Feb 21, 2005 3:36 am
by Tchocolatl
Kush, I suppose that if one feels/knows he (or she) has to go forward in a point in his (or her) life, despite any influence, it is inner wisdom (may I say) that commands the change(s).

What a song. Wars are such a non-sense. Heartbreaking.

Murat, suicide as an act of will : if it is to commit a terrorist act, it is brain washing, not an act of will at all, it is all the contrary.

If it is under romantic surge, it is stupidity and/or ignorance-innocence, not an act of will.

For me it is acceptable as an act of will only if one has a suffering incurable desease that will end by death, at more or less short time, and this person does not want to suffer more longer.

...

Posted: Sun Feb 27, 2005 8:35 pm
by Murat Malay
- Murat, suicide as an act of will : if it is to commit a terrorist act, it is brain washing, not an act of will at all, it is all the contrary.

Answer : No, in this example, suicide does not reject life itself, but only rejects the conditions under which life is given. I don't agree with those who commit a terrorist act, but imagine a palestinian child whose family has been killed. He rejects the conditions under which life is given to him, then he commits this act. It is not because he hates "the life" itself, but because he hates the blody conditions under which life is given...

- If it is under romantic surge, it is stupidity and/or ignorance-innocence, not an act of will.

Answer : You can copy the same answer here... The lover who commits suicide gives up living, but does not give up willing. How can he give up "to LOVE" ?

Anyway, maybe you are right, maybe you are wrong...

Posted: Sun Feb 27, 2005 10:11 pm
by jurica
J.P.Sartre said that terrorism was a nuclear bomb of the underdog.

i can think of dozens of situations where terrorism is a sane and logical action. nothing to do with brainwashing.

US preformed the biggest act of terrorism in the history of the world, and i think it was just. it was Hiroshima & Nagasaki. if they didn't kill all those innocent people, Japan would never surrender, and even more would die.