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  • Christine and the Queens

    Half Ladies → English translation

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Half ladies

Hair brushed back,
collar buttoned up high.
It's not as much for show
as for hiding the scratch.
Am I ugly or pretty1?
 
There's no escaping this unmoving plague of a body.
Only a mood, a love and its pain that leave a mark on the skin.
 
I've long been wearing
doubt in front [of me], like a necklace.
 
Let all the Half-Ladies through.
 
Hair brushed back,
longing for ideals,
we bear the weariness
like peculiar prodigal childs
that would have come back too soon.
 
Defying the ordinary
I do it my way2
Since I don't want to be a big girl, I'll be
a little boy.
 
For each spit in the eye
a beauty spot blossoms3
 
Let all the Half-Ladies through.
Get a move on!
 
  • 1. spoken in masculine
  • 2. the French barely makes sense here.
    Something like "[if] I defy the ordinary, I do it my [own] way"
  • 3. though "grain de beauté" is a mole, "pousser"(grow) and "grain"(seed) can evoke a seed of beauty growing from each insult
Original lyrics

Half Ladies

Click to see the original lyrics (French)

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