The Good The Bad And The Ugly

Originally posted by The Devil
Brel, bloody hell, I rest my case.
Grand Jacques was a genius. The brilliant, mysanthropic poet of the post-war "Golden Years".
Anyway, call yourself a Devil, and you don't like Brel???
Pah, minor Demon, more like.

Grand Jacques' best song was possibly this one, though:

Dans le port d'Amsterdam
Y a des marins qui boivent
Et qui boivent et reboivent
Et qui reboivent encore
Ils boivent à la santé
Des putains d'Amsterdam
De Hambourg ou d'ailleurs
Enfin ils boivent aux dames
Qui leur donnent leur joli corps
Qui leur donnent leur vertu
Pour une pièce en or
Et quand ils ont bien bu
Se plantent le nez au ciel
Se mouchent dans les étoiles
Et ils pissent comme je pleure
Sur les femmes infidèles
Dans le port d'Amsterdam
Dans le port d'Amsterdam.
 
Well I have an LP by J Brel, which if it wasn't for my vinyl fetish, would be a frisbee by now. Plus one of the more self-consciously 'hip' bars round here is called 'Bar Brel' and it is full of total t*$$£%*.

I think he's over-rated.
 
Originally posted by The Devil
I think he's over-rated.
Bah.
La valse à mille temps sums up these internet forums so well*...

BTW, which Brel album do you have?
 
In ENGLISH please - not all of us were clever enough/got on with our French teacher enough/wanted to learn French enough to pass our GCSE's... (I got a D - but all of that stuff went over my head - I can get booze, birds and, er, beaches in French, but can't understand directions!).

Bruges is ace - went there in 1985 when I was 10 - nice little place. But can someone tell me what "Stop kerkanje!" means (I think that's how the latter word was spelt) - it's been bugging me ever since I saw it grafitti'd on a wall there!
 
In ENGLISH please - not all of us were clever enough/got on with our French teacher enough/wanted to learn French enough to pass our GCSE's...

Well I asked Google language tools and it was quite amusing...

Code:
In the wearing of Amsterdam
Y has sailors who drink
And who drink and reboivent
And which still reboivent
They drink with the health
Of the whores of Amsterdam
Of Hamburg or besides
Enfin they drink with the ladies
Which give them their pretty body
Which gives them their virtue
For a gold coin
And when they drank well
plant the nose with the sky
are mouchent in stars
And they piss as I cry
Over the inaccurate women
In the wearing of Amsterdam 
In the wearing of Amsterdam.

Paul
 
Well they make Welsh Rarebit don't they? They sing, used to play Rugby, and once had a band called Man who are worth buying.

Perhaps a Welshman will enlighten us further.
 

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