Translated French Lyrics

This is something I've been thinking I'd attempt for a while... Even though I don't actually know very much French, no one else seems to have attempted a translation, so I figure this is better than nothing, right? And I might just learn something!

I just find other languages lyrics really fascinating... quotable... sometimes hilarious... sometimes can give a nice new slant on something... (fanfic food!!)

I've translated everything very literally. There are quite a few footnotes - mostly when I just don't understand something! ...Anyone help?

You can get the lyrics in the original French at, among other places, this site

Enjoy these :) Feel free to quote bits if you like, but please don't copy the whole lot to your site-- this is quite hard work for me!!

So far...
Prologue - Chants Jalupates pour Chats Jalupates
Rocky Tam-Tam

Prologue - Chants Jalupates pour Chats Jalupates

Are you born blind?
Can you see in the night?
On the (throne?) of a king
Could you sit?

Do you think that your fangs
Are worse than your cries?
Are you fierce like a rooster
When you walk in the evening?

Because Jellicles can when Jellicles want to
Jellicles do 'cause Jellicles want to
Jellicles want to so Jellicles do
Jellicles can when Jellicles want to
Jellicles can so Jellicles do

Head first,
Do you fall sure on your feet?
Are you electric
When a storm is in the air?

Lost in the night,
Are you sure of the way home?
Do you know where to find
The Heaviside Layer?

Because Jellicles can if Jellicles want to
Jellicles do 'cause Jellicles want to
Jellicles want to so Jellicles can
Jellicles can when Jellicles want to
Jellicles want to so Jellicles can

Do you cross the clouds on a broom?*1
Are you familiar with charms and socerors?
Could you beat the booted cat*2
In a race?
Are you an alumnus of heaven and of hell?

Do you have the eye of a lynx
Or the look of a sphinx?
Do you like to be seen
When you're smelling a rat?
In the time of the pharaohs,
Did you have your pénates (???)

If you don't say no,
You are a Jellicle

Jellicles can if Jellicles want to
Jelliclse do 'cause Jellicles want to
Jellicles want to so Jellicles can
Jellicles can when Jellicles want to

Jellicle songs for Jellicle cats
Jellicle sounds for Jellicle cats
Jellicle songs for Jellicle cats
Jellicle sounds for Jellicle cats

Could you at the same time sing with brilliance
A song by Rossini and a waltz by Strauss?
Climb in the ?? without falling... ??...C...
Land on the scene while avoiding the Pit*3

Jellicles are coloraturas *4
They sing night and day
Raising their voices in a magic song
Alleluia, angelic choir.
(repeat)

The mystic divinity
Of your humble felinity
Is enternal... Gloria!
Immortal glory... Hosanna!

Faithful feline and without reproach
Towards those who know that...

Jellicles do 'cause Jellicles want to
Jellicles can when Jellicles want to
Jellicles sing Jellicle songs
Jellicles old and Jellicles young
Jellicles sing and Jellicles dance

Jellicle songs for Jellicle cats
Jellicle songs for Jellicle cats
Jellicle songs for Jellicle cats
Jellicle songs for Jellicle cats

Practical cats, dramatic cats
Pragmatic cats, fantatical cats
Psychoanalytical cats, charistocratique*5 cats
Skeptical cats, dyspeptic cats
Romantic cats, funny*6 cats
Critical cats, extravagent cats
Allegorical cats, enigmatic cats
Elastic cats and mystic cats
Political cats, Machiavellian cats
Heretical cats and chapostoliques*7 cats
Cynical cats, rabbinical cats

Jellicle songs for Jellicle cats
Jellicle sounds for Jellicle cats
Jellicle songs for Jellicle cats
Jellicle sounds for Jellicle cats
Jellicle songs for Jellicle cats

A man is sitting there with a lost air
The panic-stricken look, a foreigner to this matter

I have never seen anyone who didn't understand
How to talk to Jellicles - it's extraordinary, but --
What's a Jellicle?

What's a Jellicle?

 

*1 - sur des manches à balai. I have no idea ^^;; Manche is "sleeve", right...? Soo...... what?!

*2 le chat botté - is there a french Puss in Boots?

*3 Grimper dans les ceintres sans tomber sur le dos….do Atterrir sur la scène en évitant la Fosse ....I HAVE NO IDEA.

*4 Coloraturas - ie the really REALLY high style of singing in opera -- in the Queen of the Night aria in Mozart's The Magic Flute for instance..!

*5 Charistocratique is probably some clever play on words I don't get...? Like aristocratic and.. something!?

*6 drôle is "funny".. the word here is made drôlatique! Soo I guess that is what it means....

*7 another made up one-- it's nowhere on the internet except in CATS lyrics!! XD Anyone know what it's referring to...?

 

Le Rocky Tam-Tam


(...okaaay, the translation here is... well, both very awkward and not particularly accurate in places!!! But you get the idea.

The Rocky Tam-Tam is a very curious cat

If you give me pheasant, I will have already eaten quail
When I'm in the country I dream of flats
But as soon as I'm in the city, I prefer the fields
You ?*1 me mice, I would prefer rat
But I want mice if you give me rat.

The Rocky Tam-Tam is a very curious cat

It's due to my character, there's not much to be done,
This cat ??????????*2
And certainly, me, I do always meow like that!

The Rocky Tam-Tam is nothing but a troublemaker

Confine me inside, I want to go outside Why do you open the window at the hour when I want to sleep?
Why do you shut the window when I want to go out?
I have a horror of open doors and I hate drafts
But if they're always closed, chances are I want to take the air

The Rocky Tam-Tam is a very strange cat

It's due to my character, there's not much to be done,
This cat........*3
And certainly, me, I do always meow like that!

The Rocky Tam-Tam is a sacred cat *4

If it would please me to have something, it follows that I steal it
If you give me sardines, I'd have preferred rabbit
You must always have dinner when I'm not hungry anymore!
If you give me cream, I will sniff and spit,
I like to find myself what I want for dinner.
(Hmmmmmm..... no.)
So don't hide the cream, that's the least I'd advise you
Wherever it is, me, I'll find it and be up to my ears.

The Rocky Tam-Tam is tricky and cunning
The Rocky Tam-Tam doesn't like calins*5

I will jump on your knees when you (restring meshes!?)*6
Because what I like more than anything is to cause a big mess*7

The Rocky Tam-Tam is a curious feline
The Rocky Tam-Tam does not like calins
The Rocky Tam-Tam is a very curious cat

That's not a reason to shout it from the roof tops
(That funny line again...)
And certainly, me, I do always meow...
...oowowowowowww.... etc....
...like that!

 

*1 vous me serez des souris... ?

*2 Mmmkay, I totally do not get this line and it comes a couple of times: Ce chat n'en fait qu'à sa tête

*3 Same again.

*4 THAT'S WHAT IT SAYS. ...Could it possibly mean anything along the lines of "holy terror"/"infant terrible"..? I have no idea....

*5 ...Does this mean "cuddles" or something??

*6 Presumably along the lines of sewing?! ^^; "..quand vouce renfilez des mailles../

*7 Can't quite work out how to translate foutre la pagaille... as a phrase it seems to be around a bit.... pagaille is like "mess"... foutre is slang for faire... I think it's supposed to be a bit stronger than "cause a big mess" ^^

 

Random stuff

Jellicle = Jalupate (which seems to be a singular-plural whatsit sometimes?)
Heaviside Layer = Félinosphère

 

 

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