[Scruffydog777]

Thanks Ray. After mulling it over all night I've solved part of the puzzle I think.

Of course the main thing here is where RMJ "interpreted" the song, I'm interpreting also, but trying to keep it in a form that will go well with the song which going from French to English isn't usually easy to do. But just putting these thoughts on paper will probably help me solve the rest of the story.

In the case of Alcaline, it's a story about her getting lost in the beauty of music of her headphones with the help of an alkaline battery, and by closing her eyes, she can go to beautiful places. Then at one point she wakes up and is back at a place she doesn't really like; a place back and white, but then she puts the headphones back on.

The riddle of the word gimmick was solved pretty easily. I went to a French/English translation site to find out what the translation was for the French version of gimmick and came up with,

Principales traductions gimmick n (clever device) gadget nm Where's that little gimmick that removes the seeds? gimmick n (trick, catch) stratagème nm (familier)

So what the song is talking about, 'entering a gimmick" is actually putting on headphones, which for the song will be better defined as a device or gadget unless I can think of something more poetic.

Then "declic, elle s'impose." which directly translates to " a click, it is necessary" but what I think the song is trying to say is " a click is all that's necessary.

So my final solution for line 2 at first was going to be "Entering a device, a click is all that's necessary", I thought would sound much better and more importantly, more understandable as "Donning a device, a click is all that's necessary" or maybe better "a click is all it takes", which is much more easier to understand what is going on.

So all that just for line 2. One line left.

Un rythme, un riff, pas grand chose - A rhythm, a riff, not much

Rythme is pretty straight forward or so I thought at first, taking it to mean rhythm, but the interpretation includes beat or tempo which word wise I think is what was inteneded, but might not sound that great. I'll ponder that some more,but what of riff?

Well I wasn't really familiar with that word, but I'll bet everybody else here is. But looking at the word riff, even though the English and French words are spelled the same, the French version is pronounced reef. So that presented a problem of having to use the word riff in the subtitle, but the English pronunciation sounded lousy in my opinion but I guess I can use parenthesis to show the way it sounded in the song.

Last task

Pas grand chose which seems to translate to not a big choice which sounds like she's saying rythme or a riff is not much of a choice and I think that in the way it's directly interpreted is opposite of what she intends to say. I think what she's trying to say is all she "needs" or "wants" to hear is one of those two. So how to phrase that?

She wants to hear a beat or a tempo???????????????

My last piece of the puzzle. I'll post what I have so far so I don't accidently hit a button and have everything disappear.

Edit:

I think what I'll use for that first line and I may as well post the whole first stanza for a version that will go well in the subtitles of the song is,

A beat rhythm, a beat, a great choice
Donning my device, a click is all it takes
My heart speeds up. My body stays holds back
but the music has made me
that what I've become.

My last part of this project, which I hope to have done today, except for some spell checking is wondering which music to use for the sound track. It will be Alcaline, but do I need to worry which sound track I should use? Would a recording from a Youtube "unofficial" video be safer than one ripped from an album?

I'm also having Marguerite translate this song and it will be interesting to see what she comes up with, but spending most of her life in France, I don't think she'll be able to put some of these phrases into English terms the way someone who has been here all their life.