posted by Catriona Seth

            Yes, it’s that time of year again: the daffodils have come and gone, the lily of the valley is blooming, the lambs are frolicking in the fields and… the Eurovision song contest is upon us. As you may know, the French are fiercely patriotic about how much time is given to French chansons on their airwaves. Armed with knowledge of past Eurovision successes in la langue de Molière, like Patricia Kaas’ S’il fallait le faire [If it had to be done] (2009), Marie Myriam’s L’enfant et l’oiseau [The child and the bird] (1977), France Gall’s Poupée de cire, poupée de son [Wax doll, rag doll] (1965) or Belgian Sandra Kim’s J’aime la vie [I love life] (1986), not to mention Céline Dion’s 1988 winner for Switzerland, Ne partez pas sans moi (Don’t leave without me), all of which can be found here, https://eurovisiontimes.wordpress.com/specials/rankings/best-eurovision-song-ever/, I trawled the internet to find out what countries which count French amongst their official languages were sending as their musical message to the world. I was in for a severe disappointment. Switzerland is going for The Last of our Kind by a Canadian called Rykka, Belgium for Laura’s What’s the pressure and Luxembourg is not entering this year. France has, perhaps uncharacteristically, gone for a long bilingual song called J’ai cherché [I have looked for] which is here http://www.eurovision.tv/page/stockholm-2016/all-participants. One presumes that the singer, Amir, is hedging his bets and trying to appeal to different constituencies by choosing to sing both in French and in English. Overall, it is a meagre crop for les francophones, you may say. Indeed, so let’s hear it for one candidate who comes from an exclusively German-speaking land, Austria, and is singing in French: Zoë, with Loin d’ici [Far from here].

 

 

Zoë Straub is 19 and attended the Lycée Français in Vienna so her French is perfect. Try listening to the song first to see how much of it you catch. It is about a faraway land which is a sort of paradise we should strive for.

Here are the lyrics, with a couple of words explained at the bottom of the page:

Et quand tu chantes, oui moi je chante aussi
Quand tu t’élances, je suis
Et quand tu voles, oui moi je vole aussi
Si tu t’élances, j’te suis

Dans un pays loin d’ici
A la recherche du paradis
Dans un pays loin d’ici
On chante, on chante
Dans un pays loin d’ici
A la recherche du paradis
Dans un pays loin d’ici
On chante…

Et quand la route nous semble sans issue
Sans aucun doute, j’te suis
Sans aucun doute, même si on s’ra perdus
Sans aucun doute, j’te suis

Dans un pays loin d’ici
À la recherche du paradis
Dans un pays loin d’ici
On chante, on chante
Dans un pays loin d’ici
À la recherche du paradis
Dans un pays loin d’ici
On chante, on chante

On chante et on danse et on rit, on s’élance, réuni, enivré, dans l’imprudence

Dans un pays loin d’ici
À la recherche du paradis
Dans un pays loin d’ici
On chante, on chante
Dans un pays loin d’ici
À la recherche du paradis
Dans un pays loin d’ici
On chante, on chante
Dans un pays loin d’ici
À la recherche du paradis
Dans un pays loin d’ici
On chante, on chante

On chante, on chante, on danse, on danse
Dans un pays
On chante, on chante, on danse, on danse
Loin d’ici.

You will notice the elisions in the sung version (j’te instead of je te; on s’ra for on sera).

Je suis here is the first person of the verb suivre, to follow, not of être.

S’élancer is to rush or dash forward.

Enivré is the past participle of the verb enivrer. Être enivré is to be drunk (ivre). It is used her metaphorically.

A quick note on the title of this post. Tout finit par des chansons: this is the last line of Beaumarchais’ famous Mariage de Figaro. In the play, it more or less means It all ends happily. Literally, it means It all ends with songs.