What I absolutely love this song by Celine Dion, is its almost Latin way of constructing a phrase. It was not uncommon in the language of the ancient Romans to drop various parts of the phrase in different places throughout the sentence. Hence when you sometimes read a Latin text, it may take you a bit of effort to penetrate this structure and to make different parts meet in one “modern” coherent phrase. Just shows how the language has evolved with time.
This is a pop song, but the structure is no less Latin. I guess this may be a good example of what the French language has taken from Latin. If we translate the text “as it is”, it will make little to no sense. So we have to go deeper, for clues and associations, to retrieve the meaning.
Another reason I love the song is because you may be easily misled. In spite of some parts of its “story”, it is actually much more positive. Two thoughts come to me when I listen to it: “world moves in mysterious ways” and “God helps those who help themselves”. Donc, à bientôt!
Go far, far – it was certain
Like a massive hunger or an animal instinct –
Oh, go, go and depart even farther away,
Drop everything, leave everything behind, and rejoin the destiny.
Bye, bye, but I have to go,
Goodbye to tender years, hello to battlefields,
And feel, oh feel, and set the dogs on,
Too many trains are passing by, and this one is mine.
And so bad for me, and so bad for us,
I could stay where fortune changes, and everything is sweet,
But I have no choice, and there’s noise everywhere:
The world is at your door, and it’s playing with the locks.
Chorus:
See you in another world or in another life,
When the nights become longer, much longer than my nights.
And die, or die, but live and desire.
See you when I have satisfied my appetites.
Handsome, handsome from top to toes.
I loved eating his skin, and I loved drinking his words.
But it’s too late, too hazy, or maybe too early:
It was a good story, but not so good a pace.
Bye, bye, but I have to go.
His lips are sealed, and my life falls into pieces.
And love completely, and suffer, and fall from the top
And descend to the very bottom.
And so bad for me, and so bad for him,
I could be waiting here, nothing to forget, everything is grey,
But I have no choice, and there’s also noise:
The world is at your door, and you say thankyou to it.
Chorus:
See you in another world or in another life,
Here’s another chance, and one more, and so bad for the former,
And laugh to die, but laugh today,
See you somewhere between there and infinity.
See you in another world or in another life,
When the nights become longer, much longer than my nights.
And die, or die, but live and desire.
See you when I have satisfied my appetites.
Love,
Ticket for another meetup, a date in paradise,
And laugh to die, but laugh today.
Bye-bye till later, and later is so lovely.
