mon amie la rose

While driving home today I heard a horrible voice on the radio singing, "Batter my heart, three-personed God!" tenor style. It was bizarre. And creepy. Especially cuz he kept repeating that one line. Anyway, it's a line from one of John Donne's most famous sonnets. "What? Is someone trying to sing a 17th century poem?" Yea that's what I thought too. And if they were, they should have made it sound better. And less creeper.

Anyway I was thinking, besides that one song from today, singers who can't write their own lyrics should just sing poems. If they can create a melody that matches the essence of a poem, not only would their songs have catchy beats, but their lyrics would actually mean something.

And then Beyonce wouldn't have to keep repeating "all the single ladies" a bajillion times and create a chorus solely based on Oh-oh-oh.

There's a song I heard in my French class that's from a poem by French writers Cécile Caulier and Jacques Lacombe. It's a hauntingly gorgeous (maybe cuz it's in French) poem and the song captures its wistfulness. It's about how fleeting our beauty and liveliness are, and that the tragedy of life isn't death, but aging and passing time. It's about the difficulty of finding hope in our ephemeral lives, before we can even begin to think about having faith in the next one. At least that's my take

Mon amie la rose - Francoise Hardy

Translation:
We are truly insignificant
That's what my friend the rose
Told me this morning:

I was born at dawn
Baptised in dew
I blossomed
In the rays of the sun
Happy and in love
I closed my petals at night
And when I awoke I was old.
Yet I had been beautiful
Yes, I was the most beautiful
Of all the flowers in your garden

See, the God that made me
Now makes me bow my head
And I feel I'm falling
And I feel I'm falling
My heart is almost bare
I have a foot in my grave
Already I am nothing
You admired me only yesterday
And I shall be dust
Forever, tomorrow

We are truly insignificant
And my friend the rose
Died this morning

Last night the moon
Kept vigil over my friend
And in a dream I saw
Her soul, dancing
Dazzling and naked,
Above the heavens,
Smiling on me.
Let those who can, believe
But I need Hope
Or else I am nothing

We are truly insignificant
My friend the rose
Said to me yesterday morning