Liberté, Egalité et Fraternité
As promised to Bold as Love following her post of the Vanessa Paradis track. Admittedly, neither is even remotely similar musically, but they're both rather French.
Admittedly it's brash, arrogant and distinctly emphatic, but then, isn't that what makes it so enjoyable? Plus Tchaikovsky used parts of the theme in the 1812 which I may have mentioned, once or twice, is a particular favourite of mine.
Actually, the other track isn't what I thought it was - I'm sure I had a quite mellow, but funky sounding French track in there somewhere, but it's not the stereolab one after all.
I think this discovery has kind of killed the point of this post. Oh well.
Comments
Because I've recently read two books set during the Terror (which is when this song originated, I think), I just wanted to post some of the lyrics in English:
It's either awesome or scary that this is France's national anthem!
The terror has to be one of the scariest times in any country's history. The fact that Robespierre and most of it's architects ended up on the Guillotine themselves.
I'm reading the Scarlet Pimpernel at the moment, was that one of your two?
I just finished it today! Let me know what you think of it when you're done. I mean, if you want to. ;-)
I had never really learned about the terror in school or anything, just from footnotes of books. And yes, it sounds, well, terrifying! Dumas did a great job in capturing that fear on the streets.
Yes, I must read the Dumas one. I also have Tale Of Two Cities on my shelf, but I've not read much Dickens and I'm not sure I can be bothered. Have you? Les Miserables isn't in the terror - but it is in one of France's later social upheavals, great story.
Heh. How does one pronounce "Lud"? Like it's spelled? And I am totally going to bring "odd's fish" back.
I've not read Tale of Two Cities. Dickens has always been just okay for me. Maybe I'll try it sometime.
Les Miserables is probably my favorite book of all time. I read it in high school and it was a revelation. If I had it with me at school, I would totally be rereading it. Maybe this summer.
I have a guilty secret - Les Mis is one of my faves too, but I have only read an abridgement. It's not that I'm scared of the length or anything - I bought it a long time ago when I was just getting back into reading and I never realised it wasn't the full thing! :| I need to read the whole one, but haven't decided whether to go for that or give War and Peace a reread.