Do you think that today's artists can write such beautiful songs?

[Julie4]

This song evokes suffering, pain and death, as well as the poetry and beauty that come from them. The singer questions the forces that drive him to express his deepest feelings, the author expresses the inner torments, which is driven to speak of something that haunts and obsesses him, but he can not name. The poem also evokes the death of two famous poets, Machado and Marlowe, as well as beauty and suffering.


I would love to be able to translate this beautiful text into English but it is simply beyond my English skills, I am unable to translate with the necessary nuances his beautiful words, so if someone is able to do it, it would be great to translate them...


https://youtu.be/aK9Xvxqg3WE

[RavVid]

It is a beautiful sounding song that is enjoyable to listen to without knowing a word of French. Seems to be a cover by Farrat.

I did find this translation https://lyricstranslate.com/en/les-po%C3%A8tes-poets.html-0 but I doubt it does it justice and think it is better to listen to the sound. For example the lyrics

Man cries when his iron corrodes
Yet his wound creates a new sun
More beautiful than the old lies

possibly work better in French. The handy notes say ie hard times allow the creation of beautiful art but in English I think that would be way over our heads. Analogies might not work from one language to another I'm thinking.

Is the meaning clearer in French?

L'homme crie où son fer le ronge
Et sa plaie engendre un soleil34
Plus beau que les anciens mensonges

Maybe you can say if the translate is good as it was possibly machine made.

[Julie4]

the spirit of the translation is there, I will try to translate it but I think it will be about the same thing, difficult to translate this precisely

[Julie4]

"I don't know what possesses me and pushes me to speak out loud, not out of pity, not for help, nor like one would confess their faults, but rather, what inhabits and obsesses me.

"The one who sings tortures himself. What screams within me, what animal I kill or what creature, in the name of good or in the name of evil, only those who remain silent know.

Machado sleeps in Collioure. Three steps were enough to leave Spain, but the sky became heavy for him. He sat down in this countryside and closed his eyes forever.

Above the waters and the plains, above the roofs of the hills, a plainchant rises with full throat. Is it towards Hölderlin's star or towards Verlaine's star?

Marlowe, you need the tavern, not for Faust but to die there, surrounded by the killers with their knives and laughter, in the light of a lantern.

Stars, dust of flames, falling on the ground in August, the whole sky proclaims tonight the massacre of the nightingales. But what does the universe know of drama?

Suffering gives birth to dreams like a hive gives birth to bees. Man cries where his iron is corroded, and his wound engenders a sun, more beautiful than the ancient lies."

[Julie4]

Listen to this song of him, about the Jews who went to the concentration camps, the video is directly translated

https://youtu.be/iGqz7KmCLuk

[RavVid]

I was thinking about this on my tram home. There is language (words and syntax) but there is also how we read words as idioms, metaphors, analogies etc. So there is a cultural layer on top, that make the words beautiful.
e. g. In the first line above iron throws me and corrode throws me. Why is this man crying over a bit of iron corroding?

Now we say to steel ourselves against (anticipated) adversity. We also use steel in terms of being resolute. Iron is scarcely used any more. So iron becomes steel. Steel rusts and rusting is corroding. So corrode becomes rust.
"A man cries when his steel rusts away"
That sort of gets it a bit, maybe, in a sense, double sort of. a man is saddened when his resolution becomes eaten away by difficulties.

Then comes the problem of tying in the other lines which is way above my pay grade.

Thank you for causing me to think about this as I have got a realization out of this that is broad and helpful.

In terms of the poem/song I think it is extremely difficult to translate beautiful French words into beautiful English words because of the cultural overlay that is necessarily there.

[Julie4]

I agree with you 100 percent, I have nothing to add

[RavVid]

I think you have made beautiful English words out of beautiful French words

[RavVid]

Well that was powerful. If anything I have seen brings the brutality of what was done home it is that song and video. It is one thing to read of it but another to listen to a song such as that. I avert my eyes on that part of history as it is so distressing. The thing that got to me were husbands and wives waving goodbye to each other and I daresay being brave for each other as well.

[Sixgunsound]

The purpose of the infectious disease known as postmodernism is to kill not only its host culture but everything cultural around it. No, I don't believe modern 'art' or 'music' such as it is will be competitive with previous eras on artistic merit, but people who are not allowed to know or celebrate the accomplishments of their ancestors are unlikely to care. I have a lot of respect for you because you love learning and history and culture.

[Sixgunsound]

Thanks for MHO

[exitseven]

I have not heard many modern songs that are as good as songs written in the 60s and 70s. I am not sure why this is. Maybe because of the Vietnam war? This one sort of comes close.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/kPhpHvnnn0Q

[ZackBan]

The first time I heard this one I actually thought it was an old one. A spot on take

[FunkyMonkee]

Not likely! From what I've been hearing, most of them, I wouldn't even consider to be songs!! Songs are to be SUNG, NOT spoken in a boring monotone!!

[Julie4]

Before the 60's the songs sounded a lot like this. But everyone has their own preferences.

[FunkyMonkee]

Yeah, that was called, "Pop".

[CrimsonAngel09]

While I do listen to some modern day music, I don't think they can unfortunately.

[greenice27]

Old French songs are magnificent

https://www.youtube.com/embed/oybALMX0kzM

[Andres77]

Today's artists suck. All they can do is copy old stuff and change just enough to make it sound original... but they're liars and thieves.

[Iron_Man]

Music is down right now new music pretty much

[Guanfei]

They can, but since that's not what works, they don't.

[TotallyAlmost]

What is your native language?

[Julie4]

French