Sep 172007
Fantastic! I just love this power. I seem to have had a bit of a French evening tonight… French and English lyrics below…
New Translation Here by Jillian Greenwood!
Jaques Brel – Amsterdam |
David Bowie – Amsterdam |
Paroles françaises |
English Lyrics |
| Dans le port d’Amsterdam Y a des marins qui chantent Les rêves qui les hantent Au large d’Amsterdam Dans le port d’Amsterdam Y a des marins qui dorment Comme des oriflammes Le long des berges mornes Dans le port d’Amsterdam Y a des marins qui meurent Pleins de bière et de drames Aux premières lueurs Mais dans le port d’Amsterdam Y a des marins qui naissent Dans la chaleur épaisse Des langueurs océanes Dans le port d’Amsterdam Y a des marins qui mangent Sur des nappes trop blanches Des poissons ruisselants Ils vous montrent des dents A croquer la fortune A décroisser la lune A bouffer des haubans Et ça sent la morue Jusque dans le coeur des frites Que leurs grosses mains invitent A revenir en plus Puis se lèvent en riant Dans un bruit de tempête Referment leur braguette Et sortent en rotant Dans le port d’Amsterdam Y a des marins qui dansent En se frottant la panse Sur la panse des femmes Et ils tournent et ils dansent Comme des soleils crachés Dans le son déchiré D’un accordéon rance Ils se tordent le cou Pour mieux s’entendre rire Jusqu’à ce que tout à coup L’accordéon expire Alors le geste grave Alors le regard fier Ils ramènent leur batave Jusqu’en pleine lumière Dans le port d’Amsterdam Y a des marins qui boivent Et qui boivent et reboivent Et qui reboivent encore Ils boivent à la santé Des putains d’Amsterdam De Hambourg ou d’ailleurs Enfin ils boivent aux dames Qui leur donnent leur joli corps Qui leur donnent leur vertu Pour une pièce en or Et quand ils ont bien bu Se plantent le nez au ciel Se mouchent dans les étoiles Et ils pissent comme je pleure Sur les femmes infidèles Dans le port d’Amsterdam Dans le port d’Amsterdam. |
In the port of Amsterdam There’s a sailor who sings Of the dreams that he brings From the wide open sea In the port of Amsterdam There’s a sailor who sleeps While the riverbank weeps With the old willow tree In the port of Amsterdam There’s a sailor who dies Full of beer, full of cries In a drunken down fight And in the port of Amsterdam There’s a sailor who’s born On a muggy hot morn By the dawn’s early light In the port of Amsterdam Where the sailors all meet There’s a sailor who eats Only fishheads and tails He will show you his teeth That have rotted too soon That can swallow the moon That can haul up the sails And he yells to the cook With his arms open wide Bring me more fish Put it down by my side Then he wants so to belch But he’s too full to try So he gets up and laughs And he zips up his fly In the port of Amsterdam You can see sailors dance Paunches bursting their pants Grinding women to paunch They’ve forgotten the tune That their whiskey voice croaks Splitting the night with the Roar of their jokes And they turn and they dance And they laugh and they lust Till the rancid sound of The accordion bursts Then out to the night With their pride in their pants With the slut that they tow Underneath the street lamps In the port of Amsterdam There’s a sailor who drinks And he drinks and he drinks And he drinks once again He drinks to the health Of the whores of Amsterdam Who have promised their love To a thousand other men They’ve bargained their bodies And their virtue long gone For a few dirty coins And when he can’t go on He plants his nose in the sky And he wipes it up above And he pisses like I cry For an unfaithful love In the port of Amsterdam In the port of Amsterdam |
Updated on the Ides of March
I’ve added the David Bowie version in parallel as a comparison and tabulated the page for neatness.. I think Bowie did this at about the time he was doing the Baal stuff. This layout should help Mr Mole with his French oral… You’ll see that not everything is a literal translation. That’s how languages work; it’s all in the attempt to convey meaning and feeling between human beings. Precision isn’t necessary here.
However, precision in meaning is necessary and the English translation could be a lot better as it’s somewhat sanitised in feeling compared to the original. A lot of the coarseness has been removed, the innuendo and double-entendres etc
If someone has a better translation, please let me know!
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Thanks so much for putting this info together in one place. It saves me so much time as I can use it as a sign post to other places. Brel was such a wonderful artist and you truly are a wonderful person. Thank you. :)
I give a shit Paul. Cheer up and soak up the power….
This refers to Pauls first posting here http://paulrichards7.wordpress.com/2008/02/06/who-gives-a-sht/trackback/ which sounds a bit glum if you ask me
[...] This original post on Jaques Brel has been updated and I’ve stuck the Bowie version up. I’ve improved the layout as it’s getting quite a few hits. It may help French students like Rocket Mole. Tags: Amsterdam, Astounding, Bowie, french students, jaques brel, Lingering Tune, port of amsterdam, Rock, version, Website [...]
Edit
[...] is much better than the Bowie lyrics I provided in an earlier post. I guess I’ll have to do it then… It’s still pure art and emotion. Watch out [...]
Edit
If you were up to speed with Brel, you would know that Scott Walker covered a considerable amount of his songs. FYI
me
LOL.
I think you’re in lerv Paul.
Did you get any vinyl for Mr Walker? Have you tried the stinky piss record shop in Bridgwater (a.k.a West Quay Records)? His stuff’s so old he’s probably got some mint ones in there.
Rees
No Walker yet, apart from what I have. A couple that really stand out are Mrs Murphy and, oh crap, my mind is shot. Something about a street or terace or something. I never really have the passion to remember song names just their contents. If I remember, I’ll come back and edit
Bowie's version is pretty accurate. What everybody seems to overlook is the fact that Amsterdam is not anywhere near the sea. Brel was really singing about the port of Antwerp. Belgian as he was, but found it very difficult to find anything to rhyme with it, so he changed the song title to Amsterdam
Good points @Freddy.
I never knew that about the title. I'm now racking my brains for the appropriate rhymes to Antwerp and have so far got nowt apart from the stupidly obvious.
However, you're wrong about Amsterdam as Amsterdam was a major port until recent times – it's how it got it's wealth, after all. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amsterdam In my mind, that's the sort of period that I think the song is being sung around, i.e. when Amsterdam was a major port. In those times, Amsterdam was lot closer to the sea as well because of the Dutch skills in pushing the sea back. In fact, in my mind I see this period as being before the creation of Belgium in the mid 1800s and the fact that Holland, Belgium & N.E. France cover several different nationalistic language groups even now makes me think that Brel wasn't particularly set in where he "lived".
I'll have to read up more on him I think so thanks for getting the mind juices going!.
Antwerp is more than 4 times further from the North Sea than Amsterdam. Antwerp is connected by the Scheldt river, 88 kilometers to the sea. Amsterdam is connected by the "Noordzee Kanaal" (opened in 1876), 21 kilometers to the sea.
Nevertheless it's quite probable that his inspiration for the song came from Antwerp.