wytchcroft

And a farewell to Francais, Franglais, Denglish - call it what you will...

i have been stumbling onto some interesting material recently, just following my interest in language and music.

Anyone that knows me well will be aware of my fascination with language (i have a profound love/hate relationship with Semiology*!) and also with the work of Wittgenstein (blows kiss to Melissa) who posited that there could be no such thing as a private language.

Private language? Think Tina Turner singing; "I'm your Private -"

actually don't.

But i HAVE been listening to Emilie Simon a lot and her new album in particular. There is a lot to do with language on the album, for instance the song Chinatown.

Here we have a French woman singing in English about being in Chinatown in America. That's enough to blow my mind right there.

And the album was only released in France. Go figure.

The music and lyrics sometimes mesh very nicely together - producing an expanded sense of the visual so that lines like;

"In the city a Chinese Doctor is operating; what’s going on?"

becomes a cinematic moment with steampunk burps and whistles of machinery.

So the language is democratized and communicable and fact (information) meets fantasy. The private becomes public - at least apparently.

I doubt that Emilie would keep a diary/ or her thoughts in a language other than French - but it's possible, it would be a creative thing to do.

Simon has spoken of wanting to put herself in a strange place, to shake up her working practises. This reminds me of Bowie and Iggy and the sojourn in Berlin.

One of my favourite songs by Iggy is The Dum Dum Boys which contains the line;

"I can't seem to speak the language"

sung over a Martian sounding mangling of Hendrix and Kraftwerk, provoking what Bowie and Eno would term 'the third piece of information'.

The internet is somewhat like that. Language meets language meets image meets creativity and the lines between the personal and the public blur all the time.

The desire to communicate - the spread of the web - at a basic level would seem to prove both basic neurological communications theory AND Wittgenstein's philosophical ideas.

And yet...

As well as Simon I have also been listening to an English singer performing the work of Hildegard Von Bingen whose native tongue was German but who also invented a language just for herself. (An invented language doesn't mean a private language necessarily especially if it's broadcast. Anyone seen the film Nell?) The music is extremely emotive and spiritual at the same time.

And the fact that the singer is at one remove adds another layer, as does the fact that the singer herself has in the past sought to blend, (as the music production by Lynch does here,) the old and the modern, the sacred and profane.

Certainly Jocelyn has talked about this – but, crucially, enacted it to a large degree, language as life in that respect. This is also true of her compatriot Katherine Blake

However, the music of her band MSG does seem a little awkward now in comparison to the uncluttered music of their debut (with Jocelyn).

At first:

Then:

now:

That the Lux Vivens album was produced by David Lynch makes perfect sense to me - his series Twin Peaks contains a language that is reversed twice, spoken backwards and then reversed to become forwards - motion sickness in a sentence.

In another piece of synchronicity, my lj-beloved recently started posting a similar line of enquiry and in her in usual way has been inspiring me a lot. So i shall end this bit of rumination with a bit of scribble that i wrote in response to her most recent entry.

This, i hope, will answer a couple of people who have been asking me about my ‘writing’ process, the how and the why, which i never feel qualified to talk about really. I always say that I write because I can’t articulate – and this is a good example of what I mean.

There are many puns in the following piece but some have also been lost. I'm interested in how many can still be found and read.

There are also a couple of pop music references, natch. Emilie Simon's Chinatown (see above) and also Rainbow

with the line "How you gonna be the same when they make you change your name?" and George Harrison's song Devil's Radio

with the line "Makes us hide behind shades." In French the literal word for Shades becomes nuances, shades of meaning.

The word 'Radio' allows me to use the word 'Speaker' which has a double meaning connected to the piece as a whole but also the lines at the beginning about mouth to mouth/tongue to tongue.

That pun itself works differently in translation since (as elsewhere) it mixes the profane and the spiritual (i hope).

Another obvious pun is China + Porcelain. But there is also a joke here about Chinawhite, among other things a kind of refined Heroin/Opium.

(see also Emile Simon's Opium and Dame de Lotus).

Some of the other jokes are mostly language or letter based, (e.g. Peut-être bien si mon amour,) but i don't want to pull the thing apart too much for risk of spoiling the fun (And a little mystery i hope - again -).

The lines from Chalissa that are riffed on here are;

typing as fast as I can while trying to keep my mind at bay with slow-motion ninja moves, listening to "Changed My Name" by Phil Norman on repeat...

) I've changed my name this time to wandering (

I'm convinced that the secret lies in the reason why people wear sunglasses.

But see the whole post and the connection to Chinatown, Simon - and my whole waffle here.

And it should be noted that we both wear shades - a lot.

……………………………………………………

English;

thank you beaucoup - une coup de cendre the centre of the coup a coup de

nomme what are we after all but our names the magic logos passed from

tongue to tongue the viral communion and the clacking of the shoes upon the

stairs advance advance! how much, in the shadows, what is the cost, what is

the price? and How you gonna be the same when they make you change your

name? Emilie Simon. And you could sing through the steam, the gleaming

china smile of the agent in porcelain, your new name ready for collection

hidden in a dossier up the magician's sleeve, beating like a full purple heart

stitched together, purple prose and singing from the cracked speaker George

Harrison The Devil's radio "makes us hide behind shades"...

Well maybe so my love, all creatures equal under the neon and blind.

Denglish:

thank you very much - a blow of ash in the center of the blow a blow of names

what we are after all, that our names the logos magic master key of mouth

stops the communion viral and the slapping of the shoes of l' advances on

l' staircase of l' advances! how much, in l' is shade, which the cost, which is

the price? and how you will be the same ones when they to make you change

your name? Emilie Simon. And you could sing through the vapor, the smile

étincelant China of l' agent in the porcelain, the name of your new loan for the

collection d' a file hidden in the sleeve of the magician, while beating like a

heart full crimson bent together, the prose of crimson and song of l' enclosure

of cracking Radio operator George Harrison The Devil' S” makes us hide behind

nuances" …

Peut-être well if my love, all beings equal in front of neon and blind man.

The ‘French’:

merci beaucoup - Une coup de cendre au centre du coup un coup de nomme

ce que nous sommes après tout, que nos noms les logos magique passe de

bouche en bouche la communion virales et le claquement des sabots de

l'avance sur l'escalier de l'avance! combien, dans l'ombre, quel est le coût,

quel est le prix? et comment vous allez être les mêmes quand ils vous faire

changer votre nom? Emilie Simon. Et tu pourrais chanter à travers la vapeur,

le sourire étincelant Chine de l'agent dans la porcelaine, le nom de votre

nouveau prêt pour la collecte d'un dossier caché dans la manche du magicien,

en battant comme un cœur pourpre plein cousues ensemble, la prose de

pourpre et le chant de l'enceinte de craquage Radio George Harrison

The Devil's »nous fait se cacher derrière des nuances" ...

Peut-être bien si mon amour,

tous les êtres égaux devant le néon et aveugle.

…………………………………………………………………………..

The version I haven’t posted is my French original but it’s unnecessary, basically the process went i) French ii) Denglish iii) transliteration of Denglish by machine into ‘French’. Iv) A version that makes plain sense in English. And THAT is how I have fun on my downtime!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

thanks to all the youtube uploaders!

*pun: semiotics