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Old 09-10-2007, 11:49 PM
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Default Mademoiselle Juliette - Transcription and Translation

---Updated 09/12/07---
I've adopted the French transcription by Needles + RMJ and Shakepspeare, which RMJ posted below. The only differences are that I corrected "Aimerai" to "Aimerait" (3rd person conditional of aimer), and seperated out certain words to make it cleared what was being heard (see footnote 1).

The English translation is my own unless otherwise noted.

<TABLE><TD VALIGN="top">French
Mademoiselle Juliette a
Son Roméo dans l’Alpha
De Vérone à Rome elle court
Jolie syndrome de l’amour
Shakespeare s’amuse de sa muse
L’héroïne trouve qu'il abuse
Elle monte vite dans les tours
Le grand écrivain aime lui jouer des tours

Mademoiselle Juliette a
Pas vraiment la tête à
Choisir entre Montaigu et Capulet
Mademoiselle Juliette aim- (1)
-erait faire la fête cham- (1)
-pagne à sabrer coca à décapsuler (1)

Mademoiselle prends des ailes
Ne pas se faire mettre en pièces (2)
Dans son rôle elle ne veut qu'elle
Pas de réplique de toute pièce
Cette "Commedia dell’arte" (3)
N’est pas assez déjantée
Qu'enfin William rende l'âme (4)
Il n’y a plus que ça pour éviter le drame

Mademoiselle Juliette a
Pas vraiment la tête à
Choisir entre Montaigu et Capulet
Mademoiselle Juliette aim-
-erait faire la fête cham-
-pagne à sabrer coca à décapsuler

Mademoiselle Juliette a
Pas vraiment la tête à
Pleurer sur Montaigu et Capulet
Mademoiselle Juliette aim-
-erait faire la fête cham-
-pagne à sabrer coca à décapsuler

Ahhhhhhhhhhh...
Ahhhhhhhhhhh...
Ahhhhhhhhhhh...
Ahhhhhhhhhhh...

Mademoiselle Juliette a
Pas vraiment la tête à
Choisir entre Montaigu et Capulet
Mademoiselle Juliette aim-
-erait faire la fête cham-
-pagne à sabrer coca à décapsuler

Mademoiselle Juliette a
Plus vraiment la tête à
Pleurer sur Montaigu et Capulet
Mademoiselle Juliette aim-
-erait faire la fête cham-
-pagne à sabrer coca à décapsuler



</TD><TD VALIGN="top">English
Mademoiselle Juliet has (5)
Her Romeo in the Alpha
From Verona to Rome she runs
A pretty syndrome called love (6)
Shakespeare plays with his muse
The heroine thinks he abuses
She climbs quickly to the towers
The great writer likes playing tricks on her

Mademoiselle Juliet
Really doesn't have the head to
Choose between Montague and Capulet
Mademoiselle Juliet
Would like to celebrate
Champagne to saber, coca to open (7) (8)

Mademoiselle takes wings
Don't make her smash things apart (2)
In her role she only wants not to
Have lines in the play (9)
This commedia dell'arte (3)
Is not insane enough
When finally William passes away
There is nothing more that can be done to avoid tragedy

Mademoiselle Juliet
Really doesn't have the head to
Choose between Montague and Capulet
Mademoiselle Juliet
Would like to celebrate
Champagne to saber, coca to open

Mademoiselle Juliet
Really doesn't have the head for
Crying about Montague and Capulet
Mademoiselle Juliet
Would like to celebrate
Champagne to saber, coca to open

Aahhhh
Aahhhh
Aahhhh
Aahhhh

Mademoiselle Juliet
Really doesn't have the head to
Choose between Montague and Capulet
Mademoiselle Juliet
Would like to celebrate
Champagne to saber, coca to open

Mademoiselle Juliet
Really no longer has the head for(10)
Crying about Montague and Capulet
Mademoiselle Juliet
Would like to celebrate
Champagne to saber, coca to open</TD></TABLE>



Notes

1: These three lines are very hard to hear for we anglophones! Alizée divides the word on the ends of these lines in to two parts; the end of the starting line, and the beginning of the following line. Aimerait become Aim-erait and Champagne becomes Cham-pagne. This certainly accounts for my difficulty in figuring them out originally. I'd assumed each line was distinct.

2: "Mettre en piéces" is a play on words. It is an expression meaning "to smash to pieces" or "to tear up," but if you drop the s on piéces (it remains the same pronounciation) it can be heard as "put in to the play."

3: "Commedia dell'arte" is an old Italian form of comedy, and is the proper name of it in any language. Calling R&J commedia dell'arte is a very bitter and harsh thing - it's a bitingly sarcastic use of that terminology, almost painfully so. The usage refers to what must have been Romeo and Juliet's feeling that they were trapped in some horrible deific joke. The playthings of much greater powers who didn't give a damn about the emotions of their pawns.

4: "Rende l'âme" means to pass away, ie die. It's the equivalent of "to give up the ghost." This makes less sense to me than "rendre l'aime" (gives love), except for the fact that "aime" by itself apparently isn't a noun at all, so doesn't actually mean that. The line ends up as "when William passes away"

5: I prefer to keep the word "Mademoiselle" in the English, as we use it commonly enough in English that it isn't out of place.

6: In this context "de l'amour" could be read as "Of love" or "called love." I prefer "called love" myself, though your mileage may vary, depending on if you think Juliet is suffering from a syndrome, or is herself the syndrome. See Deepwater's comments below, from which I changed "Jolie" to "pretty" instead of "beautiful."

7: In the old days, Champagne was actually opened with a saber on some occasions. Though it's rare to use a sword these days, the expression "to Saber champagne" still is in usage in French.

8: I went with "coca" instead of "coke" to maintain the reference to the anesthetic drug-like potion Juliet consumes, as opposed to a modern soft-drink. One wouldn't really celebrate with it I suppose, but Coke and the Renaissance just don't mix.

9: RMJ's English translation below suggests she "doesn't want lines in the whole play," but what I've got here is that she "doesn't want any lines in the play." I'm not sure which is correct, but I'm guessing the latter might be more appropriate.

10: I adopted this from the RMJ's English translation, keeping the "plus" negative just as the "pas" that had been in this place throughout the rest of the song was.

As always, I welcome comments, criticisms, and feedback.
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Last edited by garçoncanadien; 12-12-2007 at 10:00 AM..
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