Monday, November 14, 2011

Rayess Bek - Herbes Folles ("Crazy Weeds")

Rayess Bek - Herbes Folles ("Crazy Weeds")
ريّس بيك - Herbes Folles
Lebanon
Released in 2010





English lyrics and French lyrics via the Goethe Institute's translatinghiphop.de - check it out! Thank you as well to Ugo Tovil for his corrections to the Italian chorus and the English translation of it in the comments.

Click here for Mashallah News' interview with Rayess Bek

Full English and French/Italian lyrics after the jump...

FRENCH AND ITALIAN LYRICS:

VERSE 1 [in French]
J’avais les pieds sur terre, mais la tête dans les nuages,
Je rêvais de vivre ensemble dans un monde ou il n’y pas d’âge
Ou à chaque fois que l’on s’embrasserait j’aurai un peu le trac
Et à chaque fois que tu me dirais je t’aime, un soldat disparaitrais d’Irak,
Notre histoire évolue dans le monde arabe donc pas très catholique,
Mais nous avons préféré laisser la religion au tube cathodique,
Sur les toits de Damas la mosquée lisait le coran
A 5 heures du mat au-dessus de la ville, on s’embrassait tendrement,
On a laissé Shram el Sheikh avec leurs hôtels 5 étoiles,
Pour aller dormir dans le désert sous plus d’un million d’étoiles,
Et à Beyrouth, la ligne de démarcation faut voir ce qu’il en reste,
On faisait exprès de perdre le nord pour mélanger l’est et l’ouest,
C’est une histoire d’amour commune comme il y en a si souvent,
Mais une histoire peu commune d’une chrétienne et d’un musulman,
Au Moyen-Orient dans cette partie du monde ou notre histoire évolue
Les gens acceptent de voir du sang mais pas de bisous dans la rue.

CHORUS [in Italian]
E se vuoi guardare dove sono io
e se vuoi sapere dove sono gli uccellini
E se vuoi sentire come vivono donne e uomini
Guarda ogni fonte e ti diranno 

VERSE 2 [in French]
On a enfreint toutes leurs lois, toutes leurs moeurs périmées
On a enfreint d’une seule caresse leurs grosses portes blindées
On s’est tellement dit je t’aime, que l’on a fait chuter le gouvernement
Eux qui pensaient nous diviser n’osent plus parler au parlement
Quand il pleuvait des bombes nous on plantait des fleurs
A tel point qu’ils ont eu honte de vouloir cultiver nos peurs
On a prouvé que les mélanges ne sont pas toujours explosifs
Une vielle recette à nous mon amour : musulman, chrétien, juif,
Les hommes de foi indignés lançaient des discours manichéen,
Mais nous on buvait la Méditerranée tout les deux nous étions un
Même la famille s’esclaffait, oncles et tantes fous de rage
Mais on ne pouvait pas les entendre, on avait la tête dans les nuages
On a bafoué leurs traditions jusqu’aujourd’hui on en rigole
Si eux sont du gazon bien taillé, nous étions des herbes folles
Et notre histoire d’amour tu sais au fond personne n’y a cru
Car ils avaient les pieds sur terre mais la tête enfoncée dans le cul.

CHORUS [in Italian]
E se vuoi guardare dove sono io (ma guarda, guarda)
e se vuoi sapere dove sono gli uccellini

E se vuoi sentire come vivono donne e uomini
Guarda ogni fonte e ti diranno 


ENGLISH LYRICS:

VERSE 1:
I had my feet on the ground but the head in the clouds
I dreamt of living together in a world where there is no age
Where every time we kiss each other, I get a little nervous
And at every time you tell me I love you, a soldier would disappear from Iraq
Our history is moving in the Arab world, so not very Catholic,
But we preferred to leave religion to the computer monitor
Over the rooftops of Damascus, mosques read the Koran
At 5 o’clock in the morning over the city, we kissed tenderly
We left Sharm el Sheikh with its 5-star hotels,
To sleep in the desert under more than a million stars
And in Beirut, the division line must see what is left,
We deliberately lost the north to mix East and West
It is a love story as common as there are so often,
But an unusual story of a Christian and a Muslim
In the Middle East in this part of the world where our story evolves
People are willing to see blood but not kissing on the street.

CHORUS
If you want to know where I am,
if you want to know where the birds are
and if you want to feel how they live, they are not men.

Look at every source and they will tell you...  
VERSE 2
We have broken all their laws, all their outdated customs
With one caress we broke their heavy armored doors
We had said so many I love yous that we brought down the government
They who had believed that by dividing us we no longer would dare to speak in parliament
When it rained bombs, we were planting flowers
So much to the point that they were ashamed of wanting to grow our fears
It was proved that the mixtures are not always explosive
An old recipe for us my love: Muslim, Christian, Jewish
Men of faith, outraged, throwing Manichean speeches,
But we drank the Mediterranean, both of us were one
Even the family laughed, uncles and aunts enraged
But we could not hear them; we had the head in the clouds
We mocked their traditions to this day we laugh
If they are well trimmed grass, we were crazy weeds
And our love story you know basically nobody believed
Because they had their feet on the ground but their head was buried deep in their ass.

CHORUS
If you want to know where I am, (Look! Look!)
if you want to know where the birds are
and if you want to feel how they live, they are not men.

Look at every source and they will tell you...
Look!

4 comments:

  1. The Chorus is in Italian

    ReplyDelete
  2. A friend of a friend of a friend translated the chorus for me:

    "Se vuoi sapere dove sono io,
    se vuoi sapere dove sono gli uccellini
    e se vuoi sentire come vivono
    non è (sono) uomini
    e ti diranno..."

    which she translated as:

    "If you want to know where I am,
    if you want to know where the birds are
    and if you want to feel how they live
    they are not men.
    Look at every source
    and they will tell you..."

    She concluded with: "It makes no sense and it is not easy to understand in italian...I hope to be helpful!"

    ReplyDelete
  3. The Italian chorus you reported in the French version is incorrect
    "E se vuoi guardare dove sono io
    e se vuoi sapere dove sono gli uccellini
    E se vuoi sentire come vivono
    donne e uomini
    Guarda ogni fonte
    e ti diranno..."
    And in the second one the singer adds a line
    "E se vuoi guardare dove sono io
    (ma guarda, guarda)
    E se vuoi sapere dove sono gli uccellini..." and so on.
    A correct English translation would then be:
    If you want to look at where I am
    (look, look)
    If you want to know where the birds are
    and if you want to know
    how women and men feel
    Look at every source
    and they'll tell you..."

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Just updated it. Thanks so much for your help and input!

      Delete