Alas, this one's a bit of a train-wreck. Brassens' cheerful strum-along is overstuffed with English syllables. The yodeller did her best, but it's unsaveable.

When I first read this, and saw that famous line translated as

But where does snow go when it’s gone?

my first reaction was "Well, it doesn't go anywhere, it just melts." This is a far cry from

Mais où sont les neiges d’antan?

There's a further problem with this line. It's metrically "off". You may wonder what I mean, since on paper it's regular tetrameter. But one of the pitfalls of setting words to an existing melody is that things that seem fine on paper may not actually match the notes. Ensuring that stressed syllables don't fall on unaccented notes, and vice versa, is what makes this exercise so difficult. So this line comes out as

"But where does snow go when it's gone"

instead of (on paper) the natural phrasing

"But where does snow go when it's gone"

Mind you, Brassens himself, in his rather anodyne song, makes pretty much the same mistake by putting the second syllable of "neig-es" on an accented note.

There are other examples of metrical confusion between words and music in this translation, but I'll leave it at that.

Brian, there is TOTAL metrical confusion. Your remark "But one of the pitfalls of setting words to an existing melody is that things that seem fine on paper may not actually match the notes" is woefully accurate. My method for "ensuring that stressed syllables don't fall on unaccented notes, and vice versa" was - well - singing them into submission until (I thought) it worked. Is that "rubato"?

I entered this in a hurry when the call was getting desperate and before the deadline was extended etc. I'd been doing sing-alonga-Projet Brassens with it and was rather chuffed with how I'd whittled the translation to fit the tune, totally unaware that it didn't. Oh, Yodeller, I'm so sorry.

Snap!!! :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

I don't normally use those things, but just this once ...

Brian - just this once?

Last time I looked at that post there was only one of the eeky beasties. Now there are three. The buggers are breeding!

Well, since I was indulging myself in something I would normally avoid, I thought I might as well make a pig of myself.

Pssst! Don't look over your shoulder, but ...

But have no fear. It seems that we are limited to five images, so the plague is self-limiting.