This is a Grace Jones video from circa 1979/80. I know that I saw it in rotation in a music video show from before MTV launched. I was about 10 or 11 when I first saw it, and it freaked me right the hell out. I liked it, yet I was inexplicably disturbed by it at the same time. It was so distinctly different from anything else I had seen.
Anyway, my question really is what do the French lyrics that she sings / speaks at the end of the song translate to in English? I have always wondered what. Any french speaking dopers care to translate?
In his room,
Joel and his suitcase,
look at his rags,
On the wall, photos,
Without regret,
without sentiment,
the door is slammed,
Joel is gone.
Google translate gives a different translation, but I offer you mine.
The consensus online for the French lyrics is:
Dans sa chambre, Joel et sa valise,
un regard sur ses fringues,
Sur les murs, des photos,
Sans regret, sans mélo,
La porte est claquée, Joel est barré.
The album that is off of, Nightclubbing is fucking perfect. Sly and Robbie on the rhythm. Perfect grooves and great songs. Her cover of Use Me is worth the price of admission alone.
Back when that charted in Britain, the BBC still occasionally banned songs with explicit content. I guess “Pull up to my bumper baby / In your long black limousine / Pull up to my bumper baby / Drive it in between” didn’t ping their radar.
Yup, that’s what I hear, and your translation’s on the money. My only nitpick would be that “rags” is a bit too negative a word. “fringues” is just colloquial slang for clothes without any value judgement - more like “togs” or perhaps “threads”.
A belated thanks to Baron Greenback for providing the answer.
I spent this afternoon at work piping in Nightclubbing on Spotify. One of the youn’un gay guys from the other side of the cubicle aisle asked me what I was listening to, and I had to explain to him who Grace Jones was. It made me feel a little old, but I think I made a sale.
Agree with this, but I would also nitpick “Joel est barré”. As written this would mean “Joel is ‘out there’”, as in ‘kind of strange’ = ‘un peu barré’.
“Joel **s’**est barré” would mean “Joel has left”.
That is correct, and I actually thought about mentioning that but I think that’s Grace Jones’ mistake there, as the barré = crazy meaning wouldn’t really make sense in the context.
Excellent. I was visiting Paris in the '80’s; while walking around we saw '80’s icon, already-famous-in-the-U.S. artist Keith Haring doing some commissioned graffitti art close to Pompidou Center. We approached him and he was very cool about it - no one in Paris was bugging him.
We asked him what he thought of Paris and he said something like “oh, last night I attended a party where Grace Jones showed up naked and I painted art all over her body while the party went on around her. It was great…”
I came across this post from 2013 regarding the lyrics from Grace Jones’s great track, I’ve seen that face before. Funnily enough, i was listening to that track recently, reminiscing and all that, and i too was slightly confused by the lyrics, Joel est barré: I have used different translation sites and they come up with different answers
Joel is gone; bounced; did one
Joel is barred;
Joel is mad:
It would seem to me going by the end of the track you can hear police sirens getting closer and louder. Joel est barré a cause de la police. Joel did a runner from the police.
Love and peace to you all.
