Charles Trenet Je Chante French and English Subtitles

The singing ghost of Charles Trenet comes to haunt YouTube and the entire English speaking world who can finally understand his joyous, quirky lyrics in this illustrative, subtitled video. In 1937, Trenet began his solo career, recording for Columbia, his first disc being "Je chante/Fleur bleue". The exuberant "Je chante" gave rise to the notion of Trenet as a "singing vagabond", a theme that appeared in a number of his early songs and films. Thanks to philipchek of YouTube and Paris for suggesting I make this song understandable to the anglophone world, and for help with the translation;

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Charles
• Trenet
• '30s
• pre-WW2
• French
• chanson
• lightning494
• singing
• song
• singer
• songwriter
• poverty
• vagabond
• bum
• ghost
• sprirt
• suicide
• hanging
• noose
• elves
• outdoors
• countess
• starvation
• hunger

[tonhogg1]

Great job on the translation. Since I know a fair amount of french, but still don't know about 40% of the words I encounter, this was great for learning new words.

[Jajaaa92love]

A Charles Trenet ! on le surnomais : Le chanteur Fous !

car toutes ces chansons était folles mais il est géniale =)

[Jammie2521]

woah!

[baribonnagirlsquad]

You know, I have to thank you guys for translating this...though I'm trying to learn French, this is still super helpful. I'm writing a story set in France around this time and I have to say Charles Trenet has become my favorite! I wish he was still around to I could listen to him live. Love!

[philipchek]

We worked harder that it may seems to make an honnest translation. This song is still loved in France, more than sixty years after its creation. I would not say innocence, I would say poetry - but that part of the art is so deeply linked and hide inside the choice of words that, from a language to another, it cannot be really translated. Thanks for your comment :)

[macktheplate]

lovely song, lovely translation. Such innocence!