Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with songlyrics

English translation of French lyrics

onemorething — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 14:04:00 -0800

English translation of French lyrics: Le Premier Bonheur Du Jour by Os Mutantes I tried googling for the English translation of the lyrics, but can't find anything. I found the French lyrics at this site. I plugged them into a French-English translation site to see if I could get a rough idea, but the translation was very rough. Is anyone good enough with French to help?

Song lyric: "No deposit, no return"

ikkyu2 — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 21:00:42 -0800

Remembered song lyric: "No deposit, no return." What song? So back in the 70s I was hanging out in a hip swinging bachelor pad - sunken living room, shag carpet, Steely Dan on the hi-fi - and I dimly recall hearing a song on the radio that had the refrain, "No deposit, no return." It was a male voice, and the style of music would have fit right in on a radio station that played the Bee Gees, Abba, E.L.O., or Earth, Wind, and Fire. I remember liking the song because I recognized the phrase from my Coke bottle - I was 7 years old, maybe younger, at the time - and because it was sort of a wistful song.

Surprisingly, Google hasn't helped me figure out what it was. It definitely wasn't Skyclad, Black Flag, or Sheena Easton, and I don't think it was PWEI or the Justin Heyward track that Google popped up.

Anyone know what song/artist this was?

Longer than these great walls of China?

horseblind — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 09:42:42 -0800

Can you help me identify this song? I heard this song about five or six weeks ago whilst getting my haircut. The guy cutting my hair didn't know what it was nor did anybody there. I guess the guy that made the mix CD was off work that day.

It was fairly soft, guitar over electronics (think of some stuff Beth Orton does) a womans voice singing the following line (or at least as I think I heard it, I'm terrible about mis-hearing lyrics):
"Longer than these great walls of China"

That's the only line I could catch and get written down so I wouldn't forget it. My first guess was Beth Orton but I'm just not familiar enough with her body of music to have been able to use that as a lead if that is indeed her.

I've searched many times on google with variants of the words I wrote down and just can't seem to find it.
(variants include "the great wall", "the" and "those" instead of "these".)

So, what is it? (please)

You can call me Betty?

ohio — Fri, 24 Feb 2006 17:50:05 -0800

Any Paul Simon fans out there? What does he mean when he says "Call me Al?" I have loved the Graceland album since I was about seven years old, but have until now been blissfully ignorant about what several of the songs mean. However, today I thought, maybe, I had a flash of inspiration about Call Me Al. I was wondering if other people had ideas on what it is about, what it means, or what he was trying to say. I won't share my insight because I don't want to prejudice the answers!
(I recognize the possibility that there is no mystery and everyone else knows what this song is about and I am just fantastically dense. If that is the case, humor me.)