How to Make Sure You’re In On the Joke: 4 Ways to Listen Along

Unless your listening comprehension skills are pure perfection (and if so, then sit tight), you might need guidance to get through these songs.

It’s no secret that some French songs are hard to understand. Heck, some English language songs are tough to get a word out of. So, here are a few ways to make sure that you’re getting the most out of each laugh, and getting the most laughs out of each song.

1. Don’t Be Afraid to Belt It Out

You’re probably alone listening to these songs, so why not clear out those old wind pipes and get a real feeling for their rhythm? Or lip-sync, whatever you think the neighbors will be more comfortable with.

Step One: Find the lyrics online. For the songs below, I’ve already done the dirty work for you. For songs you’ve found on your own, try Paroles.net or Lyricstranslate.com.

Step Two: Listen to the song once to get an idea of what you’ve gotten yourself into.

Step Three: Read the lyrics and pop out the dictionary for any vocabulary that makes you cock your head and say “quoi ?”.

Step Four: Pronounce the lyrics in your best musical French and parade around with your hairbrush. Put on a performance for a lucky soul if you really feel confident in your French.

2. Succumb to the Translation

As effective as option number one is, it may be too silly for some. And while I don’t recommend getting too cozy with translations, they can be particularly useful when you have no idea why a song is funny.

Step One: Listen to the French song once to first determine whether or not you laughed. If not, then maybe it’s time to dig deeper.

Step Two: Find the English translation of the lyrics and give them a good read, focusing on the jokes and the general comedic tone.

Step Three: Give the song another chance, listen to it a few times. Search for words you don’t know while you listen and relate them back to the English translation. If things still aren’t funny, try brushing up on your slang and idioms. Or perhaps the song wasn’t all that funny to begin with.

3. Become a French Weird Al

Often, finding creative writing exercises for French immersion can be a challenge. Luckily, I have a real winner for you:

Step One: Find a French song you like. Or don’t like. It doesn’t matter. In fact, the original song doesn’t even have to be in French. Hit shuffle on your music player and come what may!

Step Two: Find the lyrics for the song (French, English, doesn’t matter). You’ll want to have these on hand to visualize the construction of the song.

Step Three: Write a “better” version. Replace the lyrics with a string of French gibberish, or a story about how your pet goat ate a car. Whatever makes you happy, as long as it’s funny and it’s in French.

Step Four: This is a bonus step, but if you want to go above and beyond, record your rendition with specially choreographed dance moves and post it on YouTube for all the world to see. Just a suggestion.

4. Play Paroles Detective

Get your highlighter, magnifying glass and getaway car. Maybe not the last one, or the first two. But you’ll need your analytical thinking to get to the bottom of some of these bizarre lyrics.

Step One: Listen to the song to gauge how well you understand the lyrics,

Step Two: Read the lyrics and single out phrases, words and jokes that you don’t understand.

Step Three: Hit the books! Or the Internet, I should say. Because where there’s a question, there’s a forum deep on the Internet with the answer. Try the WordReference forums or this insane list of slang and idioms to help unearth the dark mysteries.

Step Four: Slap your knee and give yourself a pat on the back, because you’re totally in on the joke now.

4 Funny French Songs for Jamming and Hamming

Each song includes a link to a music video of some sort and the French and English lyrics at the end. With everything from dry humor from the 1950s to modern YouTube crazes, there’s bound to be one that tickles your fancy.

1. “Ça plane pour moi” by Plastic Bertrand

This is a deep and thoughtful song, one with a meaning that will only be unearthed by generations of analysis.

Just kidding. They’re essentially nonsense lyrics.

While you might not get the best grammar lesson from this song, there’s some vocabulary to take away. It also proves a great exercise for French comprehension: the more of the nonsense you can understand, the funnier it gets.

Ça plane pour moi — It means “It’s all going well for me” in English. Literally, “That glides for me.”

Nana — While at first glance this seems like it means a nanny or a grandma, it’s actually the French way of saying girl or chick.

Bouffer — This is a good verb to use in place of manger (to eat), but it’s closer to “stuffing your face.” In the song, Plastic Bertrand refers to his cat eating his tongue. Pure nonsense.

If New Wave grooves are your cup of tea, check out this YouTube playlist of Plastic Bertrand’s songs.

2. “La Tristitude” by Oldelaf

How did a song called “The Sadness” make it onto this list? Well, first of all, remember that the more recognizable word for “sadness” is tristesse. Tristitude is its ironic cousin. Another appropriate title for this song would have been “First World Problems.” Some of the very sad, no good things talked about in this song include:

Quand un copain t’appelle pour son déménagement — When a friend calls you for his move. Nothing worse than having to help a friend move.

Quand des jeunes t’appellent Monsieur pour la première fois — When the young people call you Mister for the first time. Feeling old makes some people feel sad, I guess.

C’est faire les courses le samedi d’avant Noël — It [sadness] is running errands on the Saturday before Christmas. Don’t do that unless you want to feel unending pain.

If you want more of Oldelaf and like to drink a whole lot of coffee, check out the song “Le Cafe.”

3. “Je ne suis pas bien portant” by Gaston Ouvrard

If you aren’t familiar with your body part vocabulary, then skip the songs for school children and let Gaston Ouvrard lead you through the human body. With the song making a play on a hypochondriac’s state of mind, it’s essentially a laundry list of bodily ailments.

bien portant — While it literally means “well running,” it refers to good health. In the case of the title, it means “I am not in good health.” Hence, all of the woes. So many woes.

C’est embêtant — It’s annoying. Most of the injuries and illnesses in this list rate somewhere on the annoying scale.

Ce n’est pas rigolo — It’s not funny. Well actually, it is, because this is a post about Funny French songs. Rigolo is a useful synonym for other words for funny like drôle. 

For more of Ouvrard, assuming you’re into the oldies (but goodies), here’s “L’internationalisation.” 

4. “Le temps ne fait rien à l’affaire” by Georges Brassens

Now, let me warn you before you start looking up translations of this song and get offended by the translation (the link below to the lyrics has a good version). Des cons is a way to call someone an idiot or a jerk in French, but has a literal meaning that refers to the female anatomy. Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, this song is all about how once you’re a jerk, you’re always a jerk.

Le temps ne fait rien à l’affaire — the title translates to “time has nothing to do with it,” specifically referring to being a jerk with this song.

Vous les cons âgés
les cons usagés
les vieux cons

“You the aged jerks, the worn jerks, the old jerks.” This is a funny way to learn that sometimes adjectives go in different places depending on their meaning. This is illustrated throughout the song as it cites many different types of jerks.

This song plays at the opening of the film “Le Dîner de Cons,” which is a great film to check out if you want more laughs as you advance your French. If you enjoyed this tune by Brassens.