Getting credit card statements in the post is hardly ever uplifting, but I'm lucky enough that mother dear, who forwards my mail from Belgium, has taken to adding little notes in the envelopes. It takes the sting out and keeps me fluent in the deciphering of hieroglyphs [just kidding, Mom, your handwriting is very readable... to me ;-)].
But the latest missive from the Old World was especially pleasing because in addition to my latest Amex bill, it contained a music CD, though for what occasion I know not. I'm gratefully assigning it to motherly inspiration [thank you!].
The CD is "Bleu Pétrole" by the recently late French singer Alain Bashung, and it contains one track in particular with which I instantly fell in love. Written by songwriter Gérard Manset, it's a hauntingly beautiful song called "Comme un Légo" and the probable source of the motherly inspiration in question. There are a couple of WTF? lines (uh, fries and amoebas? a mango tree with pages?), and some vaguely deist undertones, but let's not be too literal -- yay for artistic license.
Anyway, to hear it, play this YouTube video, which is basically just an excuse to post the song online sort-of-legally. Homemade English translation (any errors and awkward phrases are my fault) after the jump.
Like Lego
It's a large area of nowhere
With beautiful silver handles
The lens of a microscope
And all those little beings running around
For each goes about their own destiny
Whether small or great
As during the Egyptian centuries
Painstakingly
Carrying a thousand times one's own weight
Under heat and in the wind
In the sun or in the night
Can you see those living beings
Can you see those living beings
Can you see those beings, living
Someone invented that game
Terrible, cruel, captivating game
The houses, lakes, continents
Like Lego with wind
The weakness of the all-powerful
Like Lego with blood
The tenfold strength of the losers
Like Lego with teeth
Like Lego with hands
Like Lego
Can you see all those humans
Dancing together, holding hands
Kissing in the dark, with golden hair
Not seeing how they will be tomorrow
For if the Earth is round
And they hold on tight
Beyond lies emptiness
Sat in front of what remains of a serving of fries
Interstellar darkness and a few plates of amoebas
The capitals have all become the same
In the facets of the same mirror
Clothed in steel, clothed in black
Like Lego but without memory
Like Lego but without memory
Like Lego but without memory
Why do you never answer me
Under this mango tree of over ten thousand pages
Swinging in that cage
Seeing the world from so high above
Like a checkerboard, like Lego
Like an unsinkable raft
Like an insect turned on its back
It's a large area of nowhere
With beautiful silver handles
The lens of a microscope
You look, you look, you look through it
You see tiny little things that glow
Those are people inside of shirts
Like during those centuries of the long night
In silence or in noise
In silence or in noise
In silence or in noise
"hauntingly beautiful"! I stumbled again on your post and started the song. It made me shivers like each time, the guitar tune and the slow description of restrained despair. And still, like I heard someone say last week, despite the dark clouds overhead "we must love this century. We'll find solutions!"
Our green party won the election last week-end. Will it be enough?
Can you see all those humans
Dancing together, holding hands
Kissing in the dark, with golden hair
Not seeing how they will be tomorrow...
Posted by: Claude | June 11, 2009 at 06:48 PM