As you probably know, I’m taking my second level of beginner’s French at the local chapter of Alliance Française. While I was on the plane to SLC last night, I decided to listen to the audio CD I just received with my class materials. Earlier in the day, I had ripped it to my Rio portable audio player, so it was very convenient. Much to my surprise, I was able to catch more of the dialog than I had expected. I had been warned it was “fast”, and it was!
After listening to the whole thing, I decided to nap for the rest of the flight. Somehow in that half-asleep state I managed to start thinking about childhood songs that i now realize were in French. Two came to mind right away. The first, Dites-moi, reminded me of elementary school music class! I remembered vividly sitting in Miss Netz’s classroom reading lyrics from the overhead projection and singing along. Although, the French lyrics somewhat escaped me, I thought I remembered singing also the “English version”. I tried to reconcile the French words I remembered against the English ones, and it wasn’t jiving. So tonight I got on the ‘net and looked for the lyrics.
I never realized that the song was from the musical South Pacific. Once I managed to find the lyrics, I eagerly read them:
Dites-moi, porquoi         (tell me why)
La vie est belle               (life is beautiful)
Dites-moi, porquoi         (tell me why)
La vie est gai                  (life is merry)
Dites-moi, porquoi         (tell me why)
Chere mademoiselle        (dear miss)
Est-ce-que, parce que    (is it because)
Vous m’aimez?               (you love me?)
I can remember how we pronounced the words to this song, and I’ll have to find a recording of the soundtrack to see if they sang it the same way, but I’m guessing the pronounciation was way off. It would have to be to fit the melody! (For example “belle” sung as “bay-lay”). Chalk it up to American musicals I guess…Â
I don’t know why, but I remembered the lyrics as having something to do with flying, but this has nothing to do with that! This is what I remember:
Tell me why, the sky, is filled with music.
Tell me why, the we fly, the skies above.
Could it be, that we, can fly to music?
Ess-eh-kuh, poss-eh-kuh, voo, may, may   (okay, I remember the sounds, not the spelling).
How could that vivid of a memory be wrong or made up? Maybe it’s the 4th grade version…after all, discussing love at that age wouldn’t be that fun!
Fortunately my memories of Frère Jacques fared much better. That seems to be a children’s song in both languages. The English translation is at least close. And I remember the little music box we had as kids that played that song. I wonder if it’s still around?