Indochine - June with English subtitles

Lyrics by Nicola Sirkis, translation by me. Please feel free to correct me - it's been 25 years since I lived in France, so I've forgotten a lot, and Nico's lyrics are more poetic than clear. To that end, I've tried to interpret rather than just translate.

Notes:
'I love to give blood' - I think this verse is about cutting. 'Donner du sang' is the same in French as English - it means 'to give blood' in the Red Cross way, but I think Nicola is speaking metaphorically.

'I'm only a girl who is putting out her light' - the French verb s'éteindre is a lovely and poetic word that translates badly into English. Literally, it means 'to extinguish oneself'.

'I've lost my appetite for life' - Nicola uses the made-up verb 'anorexier' here. The Latin root means 'to be without appetite'.

'If I drink this poison, Who knows, perhaps I will grow' - This is a reference to 'Alice in Wonderland'. In the book, the drink causes Alice to shrink. 'First, however, she waited for a few minutes to see whether she was going to shrink any further: she felt a little nervous about this, "for it might end, you know," said Alice to herself, "in my going out altogether, like a candle... ."' There is a similar reference to growing as a result of the shrinking drink in another song on the album, 'Alice & June'.

Category:

Education

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• indochine