Singer-songwriter: Charles Aznavour
Style: Jazz, soulful and nostalgic
Countries: France (Charles Aznavour), Spain (Concha Buika)
Listen:
Very nostalgic song about returning to a place and finding it changed. Hear the original singer, Charles Aznavour, or a rendition by Concha Buika at YouTube.
[Expand embedded videos]
Charles Aznavour:
Concha Buika:
Translation:
Bohemia de París,
Alegra lo que e’ [es] gris, [*alt line. Alegra, loca y gris,]
De un tiempo ya pasado.
Bohemia of Paris,
Brings joy to what is gray, [*alt line. Joyous, crazy and gray,]
From a time already past.
En donde en un desván con traje de can-can
Posabas para mi y yo con devoción pintaba con pasión,
Tu cuerpo fatigado, hasta el amanecer,
A veces sin comer y siempre sin dormir.
Where in an attic in a can-can outfit,
You posed for me and I with devotion painted with passion,
Your fatigued body, until daybreak,
Sometimes without eating and always without sleeping.
La bohemia, la bohemia
Era el amor, felicidad.
La bohemia, la bohemia
Era una flor de nuestra edad.
The Bohemia, the Bohemia
Was love, happiness.
The Bohemia, the Bohemia
Was a blossom of our time.
Debajo de un quintal,
La mesa del café feliz nos reunía,
Hablando sin cesar,
Soñando con llegar,
La gloria conseguir.
Below a heavy weight, [*see note]
The coffee table reunited us cheerfully,
Speaking without ceasing,
Dreaming of making it,
Attaining glory.
Y cuando algún pintor hallaba un comprador
Y un lienzo le vendía,
Solíamos gritar, correr, y pasear alegres por París
And when some artist would find a buyer,
And sell him a painting,
We would yell, run, and stroll joyously through Paris.
La bohemia, la bohemia
Era jurar que yo te ame.
La bohemia, la bohemia
Yo junto a ti triunfar podré.
The Bohemia, the Bohemia
Meant swearing that I loved you. [*lit. Was swearing that I loved you]
The Bohemia, the Bohemia,
I, beside you, will be able to triumph.
Teníamos salud, sonrisa, y juventud
Y nada en los bolsillos,
Con frió, con calor,
El mismo buen humor.
We had health, smiles, and youth
And nothing in our pockets,
Whether cold or warm, [*lit. With cold, with warmth]
Always the same good humor [*alt. good mood].
Bailaba nuestro ser, luchando siempre igual,
Con hambre hasta el final,
Hacíamos castillos, y el ansia de vivir
Nos hizo resistir y no desfallecer.
Our souls danced, struggling always the same, [*lit. Our being danced, fighting always the same]
Hungry until the end,
We would make castles (in the sky), and the yearning to live
Made us endure and not weaken. [*alt. Made us resist and not wane]
La bohemia, la bohemia
Era mirar y amanecer.
La bohemia, la bohemia
Era soñar con un querer.
The Bohemia, the Bohemia
Meant looking and waking. [*lit. Was looking and waking]
The Bohemia, the Bohemia
Meant dreaming with a yearning. [*lit. Was...]
Me regrese a París,
Cruce su niebla gris
Y lo encontré cambiado.
I returned to Paris, [*alt. I brought myself back to Paris]
I crossed its gray mist
And I found it changed.
Las lilas ya no están,
Ni suben al desván,
Moradas de pasión.
The lilacs are no longer there,
Nor do they reach up to the attic, [*see translation notes]
Purple with passion.
Soñando como ayer
Ronde por mi taller
Mas ya lo han derrumbado
Y han puesto en su lugar
Abajo un café-bar y arriba una pensión.
Dreaming like yesterday,
I wandered by my workshop,
But they have torn it down already
And they have put in its place
A coffee shop below and a hotel above.
La bohemia, la bohemia
Que yo viví... solo se perdió.
La bohemia, la bohemia
Era una flor y al fin murió.
The Bohemia, the Bohemia
That I lived... was just lost.
The Bohemia, the Bohemia
Was a blossom and in the end it died. [*alt. Was a blossom and finally died]
Translation Notes:
This song is the Spanish adaption of the original French song, "La Bohème" by Charles Aznavour.
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flor (f. noun) = flower, blossom
I picked "blossom" rather than "flower" to bring to mind cherry blossoms and the Japanese concept of the impermanence of beauty (and vice versa) and mono no aware, which is a theme in this song.
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Soñando con llegar, la gloria conseguir.
Dreaming of making it, attaining glory.
Dreaming of arriving, obtaining glory. [*alt.]
Here, llegar (lit. arriving, to arrive) means to achieve success, to "make it."
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lilas, f. noun = liliacs
I thought that the lines that mention lilacs were possibly mistranscribed. Trying to figure them out, I found this article by Pedro Miranda arguing that the perceived errors are coming from the translation of French into Spanish.
English translation (by me) of the relevant part of the Spanish article:
Uno tiende a pensar que las letras de las canciones famosas que oímos no tienen errores...
One tends to think that the lyrics of famous songs that we hear do not have errors...
Sin embargo un examen más cuidadoso nos muestra que muchas sí los tienen. En ellas a veces se encuentran solapadas incongruencias, errores de ortografía y sintaxis y otras linduras.
Nevertheless, a closer examination shows us that many do have them. In them, we sometimes see sly incongruencies, errors in spelling and syntax, and other lovely things.
[*Note, sí (lit. yes) is here used for emphasis. We use "do" for this in English.]
El primer error que veremos está en la conocida canción "La bohemia" de Charles Aznavour. La canción narra los días de juventud y de bohemia del autor en París, donde vivía en un desván. Al final de la canción, nos dice que...
The first error we will examine is in the song "The Bohemia" by Charles Aznavour. The song narrates the youthful days of the author in Paris, where he lived in an attic. At the end of the song, he tells us that...
"Hoy regresé a París, crucé su niebla gris y lo encontré cambiado.
Las lilas ya no están, ni suben al desván, moradas de pasión".
"Today I returned to Paris, I crossed its gray mist and found it changed.
The lilacs are no longer there, nor do they reach up to the attic, purple with passion."
Un momento. ¿De que lilas me están hablando? ¡No hay mención de lilas en todo el cuerpo de la canción! El asunto es tan confuso que varias transcripciones de la letra que he visto en Internet no saben bien que poner ahí y en su lugar he visto que hablan de "las filas", y hasta de "las villas" (me pregunto cómo en la mente de alguien puede caber que las villas suben a un desván, moradas de pasión).
One moment. What lilacs are they talking about? There is no mention of lilacs in the entire (body of the) song! The issue is so confusing that various transcriptions of the lyrics that I have seen on the internet do not quite know what to put there and in its place I have seen "the queues", and even "the villas" (I ask myself how someone’s head can fit the idea that villas reach up to an attic, purple with passion).
[*letra, f. noun = (1) letter (e.g. A, B, C, D...); (2) letter (e.g. the kind you mail to someone); (3) lyrics]
El enigma se aclara si conocemos la versión original en francés. El inicio de ambas versiones, español y francés, dice cosas distintas. En español empieza diciendo:
The enigma clears up if we know the original version in French. The beginnings of the two versions, Spanish and French, say different things. In Spanish it begins saying:
"Bohemia de París, alegre loca y gris, de un tiempo ya pasado
En donde en un desván, con traje de can-can posabas para mí".
Bohemia of Paris, joyous, crazy and gray, from a time already past
When in an attic, in a can-can outfit, you posed for me."
En cambio veamos una traducción aproximada del inicio de la versión en francés:
On the other hand, let us see an approximate translation of the beginning of the French version:
"Vengo a hablarles de un tiempo que los menores de 20 años no conocen. En Montmartre, en ese entonces, colgaban las lilas hasta nuestras ventanas".
"I come to talk to you about a time that those of you under 20 do not know. In Montmartre, in that that time, the lilacs rose up to our windows."
Montmartre es un sector parisino famoso, en su época decorado con lilas y muy frecuentado por músicos y pintores. En la versión en español no se menciona, por lo que la referencia huérfana que se hace de las lilas de Montmartre, al final de la canción en español, viene a resultar una incongruencia inmensa.
Montmartre is a famous district in Paris, in its time decorated with lilacs and very well frequented by musicians and painters. In the Spanish version it is not mentioned, and for this reason the orphan reference made to the lilacs of Montmartre, in the end of the song in Spanish, becomes a great inconsistency.
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Debajo de un quintal,/ la mesa del café feliz nos reunía...
Below a heavy weight, / the coffee table reunited us cheerfully...
I am not convinced that quintal (lit. hundredweight, 100kg) is correct. Following Pedro’s lead, I took a look at the French lyrics. I took French in high school, enough to do a little ad-hoc translation of the French lyrics for this stanza for you. Other people, probably more qualified, did the same here and here.
Dans les cafés voisins
Nous étions quelques-uns
Qui attendions la gloire et bien que miséreux,
Avec le ventre creux,
Nous ne cessions d'y croire.
In the neighborhood coffee shops,
We were somebodies
Who awaited glory and although quite destitute,
With our bellies hollow,
We never ceased believing in it.
It goes on, never mentioning anything that seems to be a literal weight like un quintal in the Spanish lyrics. I think the weight is meant metaphorically and just mistranslated from French to Spanish.
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There you go! If you like the original French version of the song then you should go read the direct English-to-French translations. The wording is different from the Spanish version in several places.