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The accordionist

The prostitute is beautiful (lit. Girl of pleasure)
Over there on the corner
She has a client
Who fills her stockings up (pays)
When her job is done
She goes on her way
Looking for a bit of dreams
At a dancehall in the suburbs
Her man is an artist
He's a strange, little guy
An accordionist
Who knows how to play the java (a dance)
 
She hears the java
But she doesn't dance
She doesn't even look at the dancefloor
And her loving eyes
Follow the vigorous playing
And the wiry, long fingers of the artist
It gets under her skin
From the bottom, from the top
She has the urge to sing, it's physical
All of her being is tensed
Her breath is held
c'est UN OUEVRE tordue de la musique - it's a work of art shaped by the music
The prostitute is sad
Over there on the corner
Her accordionist
Left to be a soldier
When he comes back from war
They will have a house
She will be the cashier
And he will be the boss
How beautiful life will be
They'll be true big-shots
And every night for her
He'll play the java
 
She hears the java
That she hums softly
She looks again at her accordionist
And her loving eyes
Follow the vigorous playing
And the wiry, long fingers of the artist
It gets under her skin
From the bottom, from the top
She has the urge to cry, it's physical
All of her being is tensed
Her breath is held
It's a work of art shaped by the music
 
The prostitute is alone
Over there on the corner
The girls who are sulking
The men don't want
And too bad if she dies
Her man is never coming back
Farewell to all of those beautiful dreams
Her life is fucked
Nevertheless her tired legs
Take her to the dive (dancehall)
Where there's another artist
Who plays all night long....
 
She hears the java
She listens to the java...
She closes her eyes...
Those wiry, vigorous fingers
It gets under her skin
From the bottom, from the top
She has the urge to yell out, it's phyisical
And so to forget
She begins to dance, to turn
To the sound of the music...
 
STOP!
Stop the music...
 
Versuri originale

L'accordéoniste

Fă click aici pentru a vedea versurile originale (Franceză)

Comentarii
citlālicuecitlālicue
   Duminică, 27/09/2020 - 17:53

Et les doigts secs et longues de l'artiste → Et les doigts secs et longs de l'artiste

Pearse BoutrosPearse Boutros    Sâmbătă, 29/04/2023 - 16:47

C'est une vraie tordue de la musique - Not "c'est un oeuvre tordu." Piaf's choice of emphasis on the first syllable of "une" is odd in this line and seems to have led our casual translator to twist herself such that she wants to re-write Michel Emer's lyric to fit her English translation.

An actual translation, in unwashed modern usage, might go "She's a total musical freak." Or, more poetically, "She is a tortured slave to the music."

"Tordue" literally means "twisted" and in today's low register French, it is refers to someone twisted sexually, i.e., a pervert, a creep. Never a nice word, its original sense was literally someone who was twisted upon the rack, a common form of torture in renaissance and early modern times, upon which one's body would be twisted. Hence the English word "torture."