Re: Vos Cerveaux
Whilst carefully avoiding the completion of “My Beige Bear” I found myself distracted by a little side project. I’ve always wanted to record a couple of the hits in other languages just to see what would happen. Jeremsoft (who is French, and judging from the name, an AI) sent me a French translation for “Re: Your Brains” just out of the blue, and while I don’t speak fluently enough to understand everything in it, I caught enough clever translation choices to make me think it was pretty good.
I took a few years of French in high school but never got very good at it. So I spent a lot of time this week mimicking Jeremsoft’s recorded pronunciation, reading a phoenetic version supplied by Rhiannon, eliding syllables past the point of reason, and eating as many snails as I could. While recording I couldn’t help but notice an opportunity in the third verse for a reference to “Alouette,” that famous old French song about plucking feathers off a bird. My first ever joke in French! Vive me!
The result is this new version of Re: Your Brains for French speaking zombies everywhere (yes, even Canada). I hope zat you like eet.
Special French lyrics can be found here.
November 29th, 2007 at 4:48 pm
Oh. Mon. Dieu.
C’est magnifique. Bon accent aussi. Les “r” sont tres bon.
November 29th, 2007 at 4:49 pm
This is so funny! I actually had to buy it to listen to it (stupid computer!) but I’m so glad I did, its great!
November 29th, 2007 at 5:00 pm
Is the link broken? I get a 404.
November 29th, 2007 at 5:09 pm
Ce winegeek dit.
November 29th, 2007 at 5:17 pm
Ha ! It’s amazing how well it scans. What a great translation assignment for teachers of the French language to give their students.
November 29th, 2007 at 5:41 pm
hi ppl
well,15 days ago I discovered accidentally this incredible song,RE:Brains…and fell immediately in love with…
these creative 2 weeks were really a great experience(I pray for Jonathan has buried my first ever song recording…)
Seeing the result,I can only bow before the pronouncing and all the efforts Jonathan made,and of course its great musical style,humour and creativity.
thumbs up!
J…french packager
PS:I forgot to tell you that you have to BOIL the snails before eating…oops!
November 29th, 2007 at 5:42 pm
This Canuck loves it!
November 29th, 2007 at 6:11 pm
I was going to say c’est magnifique, but someone else did it in the very first comment. note to self, don’t be writing songs, nothing original will come out.
November 29th, 2007 at 6:32 pm
That was great!
I see what you mean about the reshuffling rather than just directly translating the lines, it fits very well.
Also, apologies if this has been noted elsewhere on this site (couldn’t find any links to it myself) but have you seen this comic?
http://hijinksensue.com/2007/10/18/moist-and-delicious-cake/
November 29th, 2007 at 7:01 pm
That sounded great! It’s about time the needs of the oft-ignored French Geek crowd were addressed.
Out of curiosity I did a quick cut/paste of the chorus into Google’s language translator:
It just wants you to puff the brain
No, it’s not so bete
Ca va pas t’couter the eyes of the head
It just wants you to puff the brain
We are stuck here
It could be a sort of compromise:
We Opens Door
K’on can you choper for you eat the brain
Mmm - puffed brains….
November 29th, 2007 at 7:07 pm
Would it be possible to get an english translation of the french lyrics? Babelfish does not do it justice.
November 29th, 2007 at 7:14 pm
Man…you are a musical and comedic genius.
November 29th, 2007 at 7:14 pm
Je l’aime! C’est merveilleuse. (Bravo, traducteur!)
The bird-plucking zombies really make it. That, and your French “u”.
Hey, doesn’t Kashi make a variety of breakfast cereals from nutritious puffed brains?
November 29th, 2007 at 7:23 pm
This recording now meets Canadian language requirements, and I am now by law allowed to enjoy that song.
Canada thanks you.
November 29th, 2007 at 7:28 pm
It’s funny, actually, because for the past few days I’ve been singing “Todo que queremos es comer tu cerebros, no somos irrazonable, nadia va a comer tu ojos” but I never thought to finish it.
November 29th, 2007 at 7:34 pm
nadie*
November 29th, 2007 at 7:34 pm
mr. coulton, will you marry me? oh, wait, that’s right: i can’t marry a man in our country, and you’re straight and married, anyway. dammit. well then, i’ll just worship you from afar. thanks muchly for the new version au français. c’est tres magnifique!
November 29th, 2007 at 7:36 pm
My son, who is obsessed with Spanish lately, wants a version in Spanish!
Pretty great. I too would love to see the translation as I know practically no French
November 29th, 2007 at 8:00 pm
I nearly pulled an all-nigher last night writing a French paper. This would have made it so much better.
At least I have it now to listen to and make my JoCo experience bilingual!
November 29th, 2007 at 8:34 pm
Congratulations - you’ve got your own “Komm, gib mir deine Hand”.
November 29th, 2007 at 8:37 pm
Ça c’est hyper-chouette! J’adore le français et j’adore ta musique, alors tous les deux ensemble sont merveilluex.
November 29th, 2007 at 9:16 pm
Now when you finally come to Toronto (anytime now plz, kthx) I have yet another excuse to buy you une biere.
November 29th, 2007 at 9:49 pm
I like it. It recieves the Bishma seal of approval. But I watched you record parts of My Beige Bear and it’s been stuck in my head ever since, so please finish that up. Pretty please with cake on top?
November 29th, 2007 at 9:51 pm
Will Len provide a French album cover?
November 29th, 2007 at 10:32 pm
Talk about an outrageous accent. Now all you need is an owl to wrangle.
November 29th, 2007 at 10:45 pm
Well done, I love it!
November 29th, 2007 at 10:53 pm
Does it make me a massive geek that as I was listening to the song, I started to wonder if the mp3 standard supported locales?
November 29th, 2007 at 11:01 pm
Hey Guys! Support JoCo and Digg this story:
http://digg.com/music/Jonathan_Coulton_s_Re_Your_Brain_redone_for_French_speaking_zomies
November 29th, 2007 at 11:51 pm
Awwwwwwwwwwwwwww oui. Vive le chason du zombies.
November 30th, 2007 at 12:00 am
Uh, “chanson,” methinks. The le and the du are probably wrong too. Hell, it’s the thought that counts.
November 30th, 2007 at 12:10 am
This made my 19-hour French-teaching-followed-by-French-movie-event-technology-coordinating day so much more worthwhile. It brought a much-needed sourire to my visage, especially the homage to “Alouette”. Any possibility for a special edition “Re: Vos cerveaux” shirt…?
November 30th, 2007 at 12:23 am
Way to pre-empt people like me whining about the lack of completed Bearage. I will not misunderestimate you again, sir.
November 30th, 2007 at 8:39 am
I wish to put you in a glass container and stick you in my basement, Mr. JoCo.
November 30th, 2007 at 10:29 am
hey there!
thanks a lot for putting a link to my myspace! (however it doesn’t seem to work?) glad I was of help for the french version. jeremie and I had a lot of fun ! He’s a great guy, very creative, and lots of talent!
I hope you had some time to check out my songs!
thanks once again!
rhirhi
November 30th, 2007 at 10:34 am
MUSICIAN BREAKS PROMISE TO INTERWEB
Interweb netizens cranky, having trouble getting to sleep. Meanwhile, household of interweb getting REALLY tired of hearing “songus interruptus” one more damn time. “My Beige Bear” interweb’s very very favorite song. IPod of interweb feeling very very left out, about to get cranky despite superior Apple technology.
MUSICIAN FINISH SONG PLEASE.
November 30th, 2007 at 12:35 pm
You and Edith Piaf. That makes two. Oh, and Nouvelle Vague, I guess, but is she for real?
What is that very nice MP3 player you’re using in this post?
Can we get you to do a song in Icelandic or Croatian, now?
November 30th, 2007 at 12:48 pm
How about a song in welsh? I’m from wales… its a beautiful language!
Rhiannon
http://www.myspace.com/ukrhi
November 30th, 2007 at 12:53 pm
This will go down in history as the best song translation since 99 Luftballons! God, I’m old…
November 30th, 2007 at 1:53 pm
Tish! I love it when you speak French! Mwah! -Gomez
November 30th, 2007 at 2:31 pm
Great! Now people can sing along at the Paris concert. Zombies Sans Frontieres!
November 30th, 2007 at 2:46 pm
Oh man…I took French Immersion from kindergarten to grade nine (bastards canceled high school French, except the mickey-mouse second language classes) and your pronunciation and accent are better. Though it didn’t quite rhyme, that’s unbelievably well translated, except a couple parts could’ve been done better…For the benefit of those who don’t speak French, I’ll write down these lyrics in English. Maybe under user content somewhere…
November 30th, 2007 at 3:10 pm
It’s like Inspector Clouseau came back from the grave, as a zombie! Mon Dieu.
November 30th, 2007 at 3:12 pm
I don’t speak a word of French, and it is still so, so awesome.
November 30th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
Now we’ve successfully won over Canada!
I say “ON TO MEXICO!!!”
Also, even if you don’t speak French at all, it’s still really cool.
November 30th, 2007 at 3:35 pm
Hahahahah… “Et la tete! Et la tete!”… Hahahaha.
I needed a few listens to recalibrate my brain to understand the accent. (It’s closer to the European-french pronunciation to the Canadian-French pronunciation. Some expressions are also not used in Canadian-French which is another reason for my brain-recalibration to occur. It’s akin to North-American English vs U.K. English. :P)
November 30th, 2007 at 4:43 pm
http://icanhascheezburger.com/2007/11/27/zombie-kiteh-want-brainz/
Oh and happy early birthday, Jonathan.
November 30th, 2007 at 5:41 pm
Awesome song, the idea reminds of what the Beatles did with “Komm, gib mir deine Hand” and “Sie liebt dich”. I don’t speak German that well, but if the translation is good, it can have a very catchy quality (sometimes even more so). Very cool.
November 30th, 2007 at 5:41 pm
Ehm, I meant German about the Beatles songs I referred to, I know this is French
November 30th, 2007 at 6:52 pm
Translate this back to English and we get…
“It just wants you to puff the brain”
… wait.. what?
http://www.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.jonathancoulton.com%2Fsongdetails%2FRe%2520Vos%2520Cerveaux&langpair=fr%7Cen&hl=en&ie=UTF8
November 30th, 2007 at 7:47 pm
Excellent as always!
November 30th, 2007 at 8:26 pm
That was awesome. I forsee myself drawing some french zombies in the near future.
November 30th, 2007 at 9:28 pm
That makes me so happy : )
November 30th, 2007 at 9:29 pm
And I have copies of the Beatles in German. I wish they had recorded more, but they had so many problems with the pronounciation they only did the two. It’s a pitty, they sound better in German, too.
December 1st, 2007 at 12:15 am
This is pricelessly awesome!
December 1st, 2007 at 12:48 am
Bonne anniversaire, JoCo!
December 1st, 2007 at 3:21 am
Viva you, indeed, JoCo! And a happy birthday, too!
^_^
December 1st, 2007 at 5:44 am
Re: Vos Cerveaux is amazing! It really is!
December 1st, 2007 at 9:18 am
Happy birthday, JoCo…
Come have some cake. It’s so delicious and moist.
(^ you do know, of course, that you’ll never live that line down.)
December 1st, 2007 at 9:54 am
Now if we can only get Celine Dion to do a cover version…
December 1st, 2007 at 9:57 am
I have listen to your song on Wil Wheaton and it’s great!
By the way, I’m from Belgium, and I speak French as a native language also.
December 1st, 2007 at 10:02 am
Hey Happy Birthday!
I can’t believe I am a month older than you. I thought you were older than me.
December 1st, 2007 at 8:31 pm
HAPPY BIRTHDAY Mr. Jonathan coulton! I just recently heard about your music and it’s awesome, and you are a very talented musician and are amazing at your live shows
I hope you have a great birthday!
December 1st, 2007 at 9:16 pm
Happy Birthday, JC! - And, many returns of the day… Which you happen to share with my oldest brother - who is also a Jon! (well, John, anyway…)
December 1st, 2007 at 9:51 pm
Um … Bon Anniversaire! Oui? Oui.
December 1st, 2007 at 11:05 pm
Can’t wait for the Ukrainian version of “Shop Vac”
December 1st, 2007 at 11:20 pm
Brains just don’t taste the same in heavy sauce.
December 1st, 2007 at 11:32 pm
Happy Birthday!
Happy JoCo Day!
December 2nd, 2007 at 10:51 am
“Jack F Says:
December 1st, 2007 at 11:20 pm
Brains just don’t taste the same in heavy sauce.”
Yes. The discriminating zombie prefers a nice Noisette Butter.
December 2nd, 2007 at 11:12 pm
[...] Random Stuff on Sunday Night December 3, 2007 Filed under: family, life — lunzie @ 4:11 am I’m listening to Jonathan Coulton’s “Re: Vos Cerveaux.” [...]
December 2nd, 2007 at 11:28 pm
I’ve got a version in American Sign Language… kinda interesting if you ask me, but requires YouTube and I don’t have time for that. Lol. Loved the French!
December 3rd, 2007 at 9:17 am
Does this post win the prize for most comments ever?
December 3rd, 2007 at 9:48 am
Oh no, nowhere close. Consider October 15, 2007 (Still Alive); April 14, 2006 (Code Monkey) or October 14, 2005 (Baby Got Back). Robots, Monkeys, and Anatomy 101 trump French brains, ca veut dire.
December 3rd, 2007 at 2:31 pm
That’s awesome! I love it!
And just in case no one’s brought this to your attention: “All we want to do is study your brains.” -Sluggy Freelance
December 3rd, 2007 at 3:52 pm
This is surreally awesome. I wish I had this to use back in my ol’ language lab days in college! Thanks, Jon.
December 4th, 2007 at 1:40 am
The only thing worse (better?) than having *yet another* JoCo song stuck in my head for days and days is having a JoCo song stuck in my head for days IN A LANGUAGE I CAN’T SPEAK!!! Wow, this is going to be a rough week.
Happy Birthday, Jonathan.
December 4th, 2007 at 4:52 am
“song stuck in my head for days IN A LANGUAGE I CAN’T SPEAK!!!”
ahahah…its exactly what think the rest of the world with the hegemony of english music…sweet revenge…:P
December 4th, 2007 at 9:11 am
Happy birthday dude.
December 5th, 2007 at 10:34 am
Well done, jerem
and what a great result ! Excellent pronunciation, probably the best i ever heared for a non french speaking person !
December 7th, 2007 at 9:00 pm
As someone who teaches elementary French, and wonders why oh why don’t my students get that this language is neat, this really made my day. Thank you for making a very long week end on a high note (so to speak).
December 10th, 2007 at 3:11 pm
Maybe it’s just that new song glow or the cute accent (well, I wouldn’t know, I don’t speak French natively either, but it sounds like a cute accent to me), but I think this is even more awesome than the original… I hope it will convince more people here in Geneva to request a concert. Bravo Jeremsoft (Have you ever read ‘Le tombeau de Marot: In Praise of the Music of Language’?) and JoCo.
Now for the Japanese version… I bet the http://www.japlishpodcast.com/ guys will help.
December 10th, 2007 at 7:55 pm
Awesome work !!
Chapeau bas monsieur
January 6th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
Merci Uncle Jon, Merci…
January 6th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
That was great! I barely know any French, but it was still awesome.
Someone should write a Spanish version… I’d kill to hear that…
January 16th, 2008 at 11:52 pm
[...] The first is “Jack Bauer” by The Great Luke Ski and the second is a very special version of Jonathan Coulton’s “re: Your Brains” [...]