Sex, Love, Music, and Translation

Sex, Love, Music and Translation

I came across the below song’s lyrics yesterday. I read it once. I was moved. Then I moved on with my life, trying to survive. When evening came, sleep played hard to get, as usual. Finally, I passed out for a few hours. Morning light came through the windows and woke me up. As I was tossing and turning in trying to get back to sleep, my subconscious took over.

Sex is private and dark and full of secrets. Thus, it offends me when I see sex jokes and photos about nudity casually posted in the Internet. Sex is something we have in common with lower forms of life. It is nothing to glorify about or to make jokes of unless one has severe problems in this area. How one talks about sex speaks volumes about his psyche and his hang-ups, turn-ons and turn-offs. How one does sex tells us if he is only an animal or he does possess imagination and tenderness and uses sex as a vehicle for his expressions of love, a desire for unity. In fact, a man who enjoys having sex with prostitutes is not much of a man because he does not have much love inside him. All he has is animal lust.

Love is both private and public. We tend to unabashedly talk about love and that’s OK. We do this via songs and poetry. We talk about the joys it brings and the sorrows it causes. The lyrics below talk about the latter. Those who once have been madly and truly in love know what the lyrics are about. I fancy I am one of those, hence the translation. It came very fast. I didn’t fully understand all the nuances in the original, but I didn’t care. I took risks. I went on a limb.


And now

What I am going to do
With the remaining time of my life
With all the people who mean nothing to me
Now that you are gone

All these nights, I ask myself, are for whom and what for
And this morning comes back for nothing
This heart beats for whom and what for
The heart that beats too strong and too loud

And now what I am going to do
About this nothing that my life is gliding to
You have left me this entire world
But this world is lonely without you

You, my friends, be gentle with me
You know well that nothing can be done
Even Paris bores me
All the streets kill me with memories

And now what I am going to do:
I am going to laugh so I will cry no more
I am going to stay up all night
So I will hate you in the morning

And then one evening in the mirror
I will see clearly the end of the road
At the moment of goodbye
Not a single flower and no more tears

I really don’t have anything else to do
I really don’t have anything else

Translated by wissai/bkn

Feb.12, 2010


Et maintenant
Gregory Lemarchal



Et maintenant que vais-je faire
De tout ce temps que sera ma vie
De tous ces gens qui m'indiffèrent
Maintenant que tu es partie

Toutes ces nuits, pourquoi pour qui
Et ce matin qui revient pour rien
Ce cœur qui bat, pour qui, pourquoi
Qui bat trop fort, trop fort

Et maintenant que vais-je faire
Vers quel néant glissera ma vie
Tu m'as laissé la terre entière
Mais la terre sans toi c'est petit

Vous, mes amis, soyez gentils
Vous savez bien que l'on n'y peut rien
Même Paris crève d'ennui
Toutes ses rues me tuent

Et maintenant que vais-je faire
Je vais en rire pour ne plus pleurer
Je vais brûler des nuits entières
Au matin je te haïrai

Et puis un soir dans mon miroir
Je verrai bien la fin du chemin
Pas une fleur et pas de pleurs
Au moment de l'adieu

Je n'ai vraiment plus rien à faire
Je n'ai vraiment plus rien