Sorry for that quite morbid thread title, but I made a post on my blog that could interest you.
I was listening to a french song by Georges Brassens, "Le Verger du roi Louis" ("King Louis Orchard"). The words are from Theodore de Banville, a 19th century poet and were an adaptation of François Villon's Ballad of the Hung. It is about the men hung by King Louis XI
There is an amazing similarity with "Strange Fruit" by Billie Holiday. The French songs even says "des grappes de fruits inouis" (bunches of incerdible fruits").
Merci Nicolas pour ce p'tit cours du soir! Effectivement, les similitudes sont frappantes; une belle et redondante allitération en R me procurant tout naturellement + de plaisir dans le texte de notres Georges national que la célébre et poignante chanson de Billie!
For the non-speaking french, I was just pointing out the real pleasure to hear a "redundancy" in the letter R in Brassens' text!
In an episode of the late, great U.S. TV comedy series ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT, there was a plotline involving a courtroom reality show in which the "judge" was actor Judge Reinhold (playing himself). The show's house band was led by the aforementioned AMERICAN IDOL castoff William Hung, also playing himself; the band was called William Hung and The Hung Jury.
Let's not forget this underground R&B classic by Bullmoose Jackson, famously covered by Aerosmith:
Got me the strangest woman
You know this chick's no cinch
But I really get her goin'
When I take out my big ten inch...
...record of the band that plays the blues...
And Led Zeppelin had songs about both hanged men ("Gallows Pole") AND hung men (um, pick one...)
When I checked out this forum and saw I had so many replies to this thread when I didn't excpect too much, I knew something was wrong...
But I hope you took a look at my post about HANGED man
Anyway,
That good sweet candy man's in town
It's the candy man
It's the candy man
He likes a stick of candy just nine inch long
He sells as fast a hog can chew his corn
It's the candy man...
All heard what sister Johnson said
She always takes a candy stick to bed
Don't stand close to the candy man
He'll leave a big candy stick in your hand
He sold some candy to sister Bad
The very next day she took all he had
If you try his candy, good friend of mine,
you sure will want it for a long long time
His stick candy don't melt away
It just gets better, so the ladies say
Mississippi John Hurt (in the playlist above)
and next week we'll do the forum in Frenc/Spanish/SWedish, so it will be MY turn to laugh
oh god... so funny I can't get over that one...
Feel like a teacher whose tongue has slipped and who has to face a whole class laughing and making fun...
Wanted to post about comparative poetry and end up with men's changing room jokes...
But I'm sure Brassens (who was not the last when it came to dirty lyrics) and Villon (who wrote entire poems in 15th century homosexual slang) would have loved that !!!!
Sorry, Nicolas, for pouring slat in your wound but I have to post this. It may seem impossible but I’ve found a song simultaneously (in some sense) about “hanged” and “hung” men. It’s a bad taste joke from the politically incorrect Spanish band Siniestro Total, based on the swelling of the genitalia of the hanged men (yes, yes, bad bad taste). The title of the song is “Todos los ahorcados mueren empalmados” that could be translated as “Every hanged man dies hard-on” or, especially for this thread, “Every hanged man dies hung”. The translation of the lyrics:
“They put the rope around my neck
and I feel nothing but pleasure.
Serious faces everyone
but I don’t care.
The hangman in his hood
is going to pull the handle
The priest gives his blessings
but I don’t care.
Because
Every hanged man dies hard-on
Every hanged man dies hard-on
Every hanged man dies hard-on
Every hanged man dies hard-on
My legs are hanging,
the sentence is accomplished,
and what a feeling I’m getting,
I’m laughing at everyone’s face.
I’m left alone at the prison yard,
everyone left.
And even for a short time
it surely worth it.
Because because because because because because
Every hanged man dies hard-on
Every hanged man dies hard-on
Every hanged man dies hard-on
Every hanged man dies hard-on”
Don’t believe me? Here it is, it last barely a minute…
Brassens in his song « Le Moyenageux » (Middle Age Man), wishes he was living in the 15th century like his idol the poet/thief François Villon, and he also aludes to the hung/hanged man in Honorio’s song. In the beginning of the song he pictures himself having big parties :
A la fin, les anges du guet In the end, the guardian angels (the 15th century cops)
M'auraient conduit sur le gibet. Would take me to the gallows
Je serais mort, jambes en l'air, Then I would die, like I was screwing
Sur la veuve patibulaire, On the scaffold (it’s a play on words : here he says “the sinister widow”, that’s how they called the scaffold)
En arrosant la mandragore, Spraying the mandragora
L'herbe aux pendus qui revigore, The reviving hungman’s plant (mandragora was said to grow at the foot of the scaffolds, because of the semen sprayed by the dying hungman/hanged man, and had invigorating power)
En bénissant avec les pieds And blessing with my feet
Les ribaudes apitoyées. All the pitiful whores< :i>
“pouring slat in your wound” was meant to be “pouring salt in your wound”. I’m afraid that the word slat could have some sexual double meaning.
Just kidding. Anyway, Nicolas, you’ve found another crossed reference to hanged and hung, that’s brilliant. And the Brassens one is way more poetic and subtle than the one from Siniestro Total!!
thanks Honorio
Sometimes writing/posting in another language is like writing in the dark. You're not sure of what will come up when the lights are on.
Sometimes mistakes prove very fruitful. You hit the wrong piano key and you come up with a wonderful chord... same for chefs de cuisine, scientists, etc..