• Édith Piaf

    Ça gueule ça, Madame → English translation→ English

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Bawling

She's about this tall. . .
No. . .I'm exaggerating. . .
Let's say, she's like that. . .
Well . . .pretty close to that!
She may not look like much,
but gosh!
She's better than
This little piece of nothing. . .
 
And her bawling, Madame
She was all that could be heard, in the house
Since there are none, she has to look for reasons
For that, she put on quite a performance!
And her bawling, Madame
She said to me, as haughtily as she could:
"Don't think you scare me!"
She's tense, she's stamping her foot!
She unsheathes her claws, she opens her eyes
All movements, all shouts, completely furious
I wanted to take her in my arms
And hold her close against me
But. . .the way she carries on, madame!
It makes me laugh, but inside
I'm a gentleman, first and foremost,
and it's safer!
2 - to calm her, I searched for a trick
I said to myself, let's see. . .
I'll make her see reason!
And I said to her: "Oh, right! I'm in the wrong!"
"Ah! You admit it!" she said.
So. . .tut-tut-tut. . .
 
And again she bawls, Madame,
Even when everything's going smoothly in the house
Since there are none, she has to look for reasons
For it, she puts on quite a performance
And she bawls, Madame!
She stuck me there, close to my heart,
So, this one time, to scare her,
I clenched my fists, I raised my hand. . .
She looked at me, really surprised
And if you saw her eyes, you'd think she'd been punished!
So, of course, I opened my eyes
And she threw herself against me.
And she cried, Madame
We looked everywhere for a big handkerchief
In which we could hide her despair
Which hurts to see. . .
I consoled her and blew her nose
A moment later, I kissed her mouth
I held her against me again
And encircled her with my arms. . .
She was tiny, tiny. . .
But, really tiny. . .
For a moment, she said "Forgive me. . ."
Oh! But she's not proud, madame!
It's always satisfying
To make her admit that she's wrong
And since I'm stronger than her. . .
 
(Piaf): "Jacques!!! You're coming, right!?. . ."
 
Original lyrics

Ça gueule ça, Madame

Click to see the original lyrics (French)

Comments
Grampa Wild WillyGrampa Wild Willy    Tue, 04/11/2014 - 12:50
5

Superb translation!

Still, I have a couple of quibbles.

I'm not 100% convinced of the choice of "bawl." My only encounter with the word "gueule" had been in connection with an animal's mouth or a derogatory way of referring to a person who runs his mouth, putting people down. So I read the article in ATILF about "gueule." There's a ton of uses of the word, a great many of them derogatory. My problem with the word "bawl" is that I almost always encounter it in the sense of crying hard. And I think in this song it would probably mean more shouting, screaming, howling, hollering, I even like the one line where you translated it as "carrying on." I do recognize, however, that bawl can also mean shouting, screaming, etc. So, I guess it's kind of up to taste which way to go.

Ça tient d'la place > I think I would go with "She holds her own."

Since there are none, > I would have gone with, "Even when there are none,"

fait tout un drame ! > I think I would have said, "makes quite a fuss!" or "puts up . . ."

In fact, I think there's some bad punctuation in this passage:
Y a pas, faut qu'elle cherche des raisons
De ça, elle en fait tout un drame
I would correct this as:
Y a pas, faut qu'elle cherche des raisons.
De ça, elle en fait tout un drame !
Which comes out as:
Even when there are none, she has to look for reasons.
And then, she puts up quite a fuss!
And of course, this couple of lines occurs more than once so I would fix all occurrences.

de toute sa hauteur >Your choice of "haughtily" is fine, but I think I might be tempted to continue the idea of her being short here. Something like "from ever last millimeter of her height."

There's a number of spots, too many to list them all, where the French is in the present tense and you translated it in the past tense. I think the present would work as well in English.

I disagree with this punctuation, too:
Moi, ça me fait rire, mais en dedans,
D'abord, je suis un gentleman,
I think it should be this:
Moi, ça me fait rire, mais en dedans.
D'abord, je suis un gentleman,
Which slightly alters the translation:
It makes me laugh, but inside.
I'm a gentleman, first and foremost,
Very subtle, I know, but I think it makes more sense like this.

Je vais lui donner raison ! > This is an idiom. It translates as, "I will prove her right!" Or maybe "I'll say she is right!" That would fit even better with the few lines that follow.

Elle m'arrive là, juste à mon coeur, > I'm not so sure about your choice here. I think this might be an echo of the opening lines: "Next to me, she comes up to here, just to my heart." How symbolic, by the way . . .

Immediately after this line is a whole passage that is present tense in French that you've translated in past tense. Again, I'm not so sure about that. Within this passage, you have translated "des fois" as "this one time." I think it's "sometimes." I take the sense to be that this happens occasionally and the same scene with the hugging occurs each time.

Elle a regard tellement surpris
Qu'on dirait que ses yeux sont punis ! >
She gets such a surprised look
That you'd say her eyes were being punished!

j'ouvre les bras > . . . arms (not eyes)

Pour un peu, > You did this as, "For a moment," I would say "After . . . "

And since I'm stronger than her. . . > I would go with "And that I'm . . . "

ghostlyghostly
   Wed, 05/11/2014 - 17:02

WOW thank you so much for your help!! I know the translation is pretty rough, lol--I cringed a little rereading it, hahaha. It's very clumsy!

I had so much trouble with the word "guele"! I actually had it translated as "carrying on" initially, but I decided to be more literal in the end. "Carrying on" does sound a lot better though.

And thank you for the "ca tient d'la place" and "elle m'arrive la" translations--I actually couldn't find a clear translation of those and wasn't sure what the phrases meant! My idiomatic French is quite poor since I haven't had much exposure to French literature outside of poetry and the dismal set works we do in school :( The past tense thing is just a bad habit, lol. The consequence of my winging it.

I'll definitely go back and change my translation when I have time--straighten it out a bit. . .at the moment, I'm preparing for my final high school exams, and this is my idea of "studying" for French x_x again, thank you very much, it really helps!! :D

DD OiseauDD Oiseau    Wed, 05/11/2014 - 02:07

I think it's because it's a song Piaf herself wrote for Pills, and was put on record labels under her name instead of his. :)