Je Ne Sais Pas

Je Ne Sais Pas Quoi Je Chante

The idea of doing a foreign language song has been in my notebooks for a while. Of course, I can't help but turn it into a joke (in a good sense): if you sing this song loud and boisterously, it sounds like a fun drinking song. If you actually know French, it's a very silly drinking song...Obviously a song of this type is amenable to significant expansion. The music is an original bit of doggerel.

As another option (though one you ought to be careful with), you can sing this song sadly and slowly, so it sounds as if it is a tragic love song (or whatever). I'm disinclined to sing it that way unless the audience has a large number of francophones (for example, it's something I might try the next time I'm in Montreal). The reason is this: with a French speaking audience, the joke is on you, the singer, who obviously thinks the song is about something very different than what it really is about. If your audience doesn't speak French, then the joke is on them, the listeners, because they think the song is about something very different. It's funny to a third party (it's a classic translation joke), but it's something that must be used carefully.

Note that the song begins with the chorus.

Chorus Je ne sais pas quoi je chante Mais je chante il tous le même. J'ai un poisson sur ma tête. Il est un chapeau tres bête. Chorus L'oiseau joyeux dans ma main Me donne un cadeau tres grand Chorus Vous êtes dans un grand danger Parce que j'ai besoin péter.

Translation

I'll offer a translation for those who don't speak French (or speak it with a different accent than I do...). However, if you are singing this before an audience, I'd suggest hamming it up a bit and giving them a different translation; then let the audience members who speak French figure it out...

I don't know what I sing But I sing it anyway. I have a fish on my head. It is a very silly hat. The happy bird in my hand. Gives me a large gift. You are in great danger. Because I need to fart.

I ran the song by someone from Montreal, who suggested a few changes (though he did say that what I'd written was actually closer to medieval French, oddly enough...). The final version:

Je ne sais pas ce que je chante Mais je le chante tout de même. J'ai un poisson sur ma tête. C'est la un chapeau tres bête. Chorus L'oiseau joyeux dans ma main Me donne un cadeau tres grand Chorus Vous êtes dans un grand danger Parce que j'ai besoin péter.

In my rather execrable French, it probably doesn't make much of a difference...