Anthony's Analysis of the song Gourmandises

[garçoncanadien]

Le source de cette analyse est le nid d’alizée

Anthony’s personal translation for the site Alizée’s nest. Please do not take this and put it on your sites.

INTRO :

The « Delicacies » of Alizée are definitely the pleasures that she offers to the public. The album itself is called “Delicacies”, it therefore indicates to us that the collection of songs is a real delicacy, and that is not even mentioning that it is a sin! Kids are greedy for certain things and adults are for others, we again find this double entendre in the words, one meaning for kids and one meaning for adults…

The first couplet:

“When you think about me”
You, the wolf of the steppes”: In the symbolism of kids fairytales, the wolf represents evil, but here it is referring to someone who admires her, who has passion, and love for her. This maybe the public or a man. “The wolf of the steppes” lives on the plains with sparse vegetation, thus it has no choice but to think about what it wants to have, and here its Alizée. It’s also a reference to the book “The wolf of the Steppes” by Herman Hesse where Alizée takes the role of Hermine (female alter ego of the main character of the book).

“In the depths of you
Feel the drunkenness again”: Alizée asks her admirer (man, public) to know if his passion for her is sincere.

“I so hunger for you
You constantly say it”: Those who think about Alizée give her a lot of love and sometimes too much, the metaphor of hunger represents the public’s desire to talk to, touch, and hear Alizée. This is also maybe the man’s desire.

“And take good care of me
Tell me if it hurts”: “Take care of” might mean many things for a public, we say that the public that decides the popularity of an artist, without all the attention that the public (and in particular the fans) give to Alizée (websites, collections, letters, fan clubs…) Alizée would not be what she is. She therefore asks if this time spent on her invades on our private life. It is the same request that she asks of the man, if his attention, his love, his gifts, his surprises tire him.

“Oh wolf are you there for me
You make the promise
And If I offer myself to you
It is with thousands of kisses of tenderness”: At a first glance we see that she can only offer herself with tenderness, by friendship, and that she cannot offer love to whomever asks for it, at a second glance, Alizée asks those who admire her (always the double entendre public/men) to promise her that they will stay faithful… In exchange she promises to offer herself completely to whatever task she is doing.

Refrain :

The refrain is composed of 4 sentences: “The first kisses”; “The stolen kisses”; “The kisses (…) where the hand goes towards” and the climax: The kisses of Alizée (the male sex’s tender kiss).

“There are kisses
The first
Taste of sea spray
Taste of sadness”: First love is, quite truly, subjected to sadness (spleen) and to nostalgia. Sea spray is a fine rain that come after waves that splash upon shore, in a more suggestive sense it can express the little drops of saliva that come after kissing Alizée…

“There are stolen kisses
In the trains of tsarinas” : To be surprised by an unwanted or unexpected kiss in a luxury place (tsarinas) that move a lot, the movement is represented by the train, this movement can be a place where many people pass by.

“Kisses of a summer
Where the hand wants to reach”: After the first two sentences it is the hands turn to reach out in order to add caresses to the kiss.

“But Alizée’s kisses
are real delicacies”: Delicacy is in the dictionary as one of the synonyms of “fellatio”. That is what might happen in the end, Alizée’s kisses.

The second couplet:

“When I think about you
You the wolf of the steppes”: Here it is Alizée who has been charmed by her admirer(s), it’s a key phrase of the song, in the second couplet it is man/the public that is trying to dominate Alizée, but not so much that Alizée is starting to get scared.

“I am not scared of you
Does it intimidate you”: Alizée admits being charmed by her admirer but not being afraid and above all not being under his control, and she asks him if it is a “heavy weight” to bear for him to not be able to manipulate her by this domination.

“Take that road
You constantly say it”: Alizée is fed up of being guided by what others would like her to be (for the public this could be demands of her style, look, for the man “that road” could be Alizée’s head that moves towards him to give him a new tender kiss).

“Oh! Sleep thou close to me
And devour me with your gaze, my princess”: These words belong to the man/public. They ask for a closer relationship (for the man, to go to actual sexual relations). Devour me with your gaze means to look at her with pleasure, but there we can relate this with the themes of the rest of the song on the theme of “Delicacies (fellatio)”, Alizée sees the man as closer and she can therefore take even more pleasure.

Anthony... http://www.pardonnenous.com

[Matrix]

This thread should be re-titled..." Mylene Farmer and trying to understand her lyrics"

[garçoncanadien]

then what about the other analyses? they fall under that topic too. would you prefer a big long single thread with all the analyses in one place?

[espire]

Yeah, bringing this thread up after a few months, but my dad notified me of something interesting. We never really got the whole "trains of tsarinas" thing, and I asked him. Well, a train, of course, can also be either a following of people or some sort of gown trail, like the really long trails on some wedding gowns. So, I don't know anything definite, but, you know...

Stolen kisses in the tsarina's trains, or under their veils? Dunno. Just thought I'd mention it. You never know, with Mylène.

[RobandSandy]

That was really tought provoking. And Im new to Mylene and I just saw a video by her F Them All She is brilliant.

[user472884]

“But Alizée’s kisses
are real delicacies”: Delicacy is in the dictionary as one of the synonyms of “fellatio”. That is what might happen in the end, Alizée’s kisses.


Wow. I think I'm just going to stick with listening and enjoying and not deeply analyzing the lyrics from now on :p

[MelleValetta]

At the end of the day, nothing has meaning except what you give it.

I am aware of the "double talk of Mylene", but I am also aware that this is (more or less) the only way to sell music. My brother is now a fan and is also studying French, and has had these same questions about the meaning of Gourmandises.

[Alizée 4K]

My brother is now a fan and is also studying French, and has had these same questions about the meaning of Gourmandises.

Yes, the more your knowledge of the intricacies of French and common culture, slang, tropes from literature, poetry etc grow, the more you realise that pretty much every song on those first two albums can be read two different ways - the innocent, child appropriate way for her young fans, but also in a more adult sexual way for her older fans. However, with cultural understanding and context, its not as "perverse" as it may seem to native English speakers.

I wrote a little more about this in my reply to the "Has anyone here learned to speak French?" post explaining why this is less controversial in France and isn't exactly sexualising her in the way you may initially think.

These kinds of cultural differences in discussing of finding poetry and beauty in romanticising the memory of your own early sexual thoughts or explorations in the mind only before you were fully old enough to understand are a common theme in much French culture and not seen as dirty for an older person to reminisce fondly about those times, or think its cute when you see it happening to a young person. It does not mean you are sexualising them, more reminiscing about when you were young and naïve and appreciating the passage of time and beauty in nature. This is very difficult to explain in English and to people who have grown up with different attitudes around sexual discussion. It also sometimes causes controversy when French movies are released to the American or British markets. I can think of some famous examples that I could defend but that would be a long and controversial discussion.

The interesting thing for me is comparing the differences between how Alizée and Britney Spears were marketed in their first albums. The American star had squeaky clean lyrics and almost no sexual jokes, but extremely provocative music videos, dance routines, and highly sexualised photoshoots. Conversely, the French star had the opposite: very sexual lyrics, but her music videos, photoshoots and interviews were very tame and emphasising how young and pure and sweet she was. They didn't start with the more overtly "sexy" image til the second album and even then the marketing of her image was far less outwardly raunchy than Britney and a lot more appropriate.

The reason for this is that even though Alizée's lyrics were "sexual", they were about the early exploration of ideas in the mind of a young girl and were actually emphasising her youth and innocence - rather than directly inviting for her to be sexualised and objectified. In my opinion, Britney's innocent lyrics but highly sexualised magazine cover shoots in "jailbait" costumes and literal children's props (Barbie bikes, teletubbies, teddy bears, dolls) were FAR more creepy because they were instructing the audience to sexualise her specifically because of her youth. Mylene would have never allowed this for Alizée during her time managing her.