Do you Have to Sing in English to Rock Out?

French singer.

The first French I learned as a child was an innocent little line straight from the honey-coated lips of Patti LaBelle "Voulez-vous couchez avec moi, ce soir?"

The scene was all-American. I was at a UC Berkeley football game with several different families. (For anyone French we’re talking about the kind of football where you mostly use your hands. Think helmets, dogpiles and very long pauses in between plays. Football is not to be confused with the other “foot” game you actually do play with your feet called soccer.) Anyways, my 12 year old self and a girlfriend of mine decided the post-football game mayhem was a perfect time to start singing at the top of our lungs. Whey not join in the fun? Somehow we landed upon the "voulez-vous couchez avec moi, ce soir" line from "Lady Marmalade." We of course had no idea what the sounds we were mumbling meant.

We soon learned. Our French performance sent my friend’s dad into stitches. He couldn’t stop laughing at the two of us. In between chuckles he explained that we were asking every slightly tipsy football fan around us to sleep with us. We were just old enough to understand this probably wasn’t a good thing to do.

Musical language confusion rarely happens to us Americans as we have very little contact with music in other languages. It was actually a stroke of luck that I even had one line of French to fumble my way through. Sure, you can catch Manu Chao on the radio from time to time, but you certainly won’t hear French hitting your ears in the form of a rock song.

Interestingly, it is not all that different in France. You certainly have a lot more musical choice than "Lady Marmalade" and "La Vie en Rose." But about half the songs playing on French radio are in English.

The strangeness of this phenomenon hits you when you realize the wealth of obscene English words played out across the airwaves in France. Aren't people shocked and offended? Well, no. Hardly anyone understands the lyrics they are hearing! I am sure many a French girlette has sung English lyrics that would make American ears burn, but no one here seems to realize.

What’s up with the French love of music in English? A recent article in the French paper "Le Monde" says that more and more French artists are singing in English. Seventeen out of 130 artists at the all-French “Francopholies” festival in July sang exclusively in English this year, a big shocker for a country that loves its language and has attempted to stop the infiltration of English words in the past.

Many non-English speaking French artists are turning to English as a way to reach farther and rock harder. The first reason is logical : English is more effective for musicians who want to make it big internationally. The second reason gets more interesting. English, apparently, rocks.

The French singer Sébastien Tellier holds this second opinion. Tellier represented France this year at the annual Eurovision song competition. The song that got him there, "Divine," is in English. Why? As Tellier explains, “Un Français qui chante du rock, ça fait nul.” Well, he doesn’t really speak English all that well, but if he did he might say Rock sung in French ain’t got no soul. Tellier says rock, RnB and rap all grew out of American culture and so when sung in French can’t have the same feeling. To counteract this, Tellier’s solution is simple; choose a few English words that sound good, throw them together, go on "Google translate" to be certain you are actually saying something in English and voilà! Suddenly he has a little English ditty to tempt the masses with.

The innovative French singer Camille has a different reason to sing in English; the language sounds are just more “funky.” In an interview for her new album “Music Hole,” Camille says English is more rockin’ because there are more vowels. French on the other hand has a lot of consonants, especially when sung. Camille says that when she created "Music Hole" she felt like dancing and she does rock it pretty good. She ended up with a much more joyful and energetic album then her previous French language albums. It is much less contemplative than her former style though just as innovative and interesting. Maybe there is no connection between the increased energy of her newest album and the language it is sung in. But it holds true that the French tend to rock out in English.

With more and more French music being sung in English, I’m starting to wonder if any other American children will even have the music material to "voulez-vous??" their way into trouble.