The World in Harmony: French

I was going to wait to post a French song, but this song keeps coming up in my life, as well as getting stuck in my head, so here we go! The song I’m going to talk about is “Formidable” by Belgian artist Stromae. This song is able to relate others, despite a language barrier, through its emotion and clever lyrics (focusing on the sound of the lyrics, not just what they mean!). But first (or later if you wish) check out the song!

Formidable- Stromae

Let’s start with my favorite aspect of the song: the emotion. Sure this song won’t unite everyone who listens to it with smiles and a rhythmic hand-clapping but that doesn’t mean happiness is the only emotion with which we can connect to people. Heartache, sadness, anger, hopelessness; these are all deep emotions which come through in the song. Furthermore, these are deep emotions we as humans all encounter. It can be difficult to deal with these types of painful emotions, so when we can hear it in the voice of a singer, we at least feel we’re not alone. Don’t we all at some point wish to release all of these horrible pent up emotions? Maybe even make a public scene? Well hey, sing your guts out with this song! Even if you don’t know the language, the chorus is easy to catch on to and serves as a venting technique for such complex emotions.

 The catchiness of the chorus brings me to my next point: the lyrics. The verses and chorus have a brilliant rhythmic quality and structure to them, however, I’m just going to talk about a part of the chorus (otherwise I could go on for days!). Stromae uses a play on words with “formidable” (translated as “wonderful” in the video) and “fort minable” (translated as “so pathetic” in the video). Though the pronunciation differs by a letter, they highly contrast in meaning. However, if this was translated to sing, in English for example, it would sound horrible because the words do not blend together. The lyrical quality of the sound would be lost, no longer creating a defined rhythm. The rhythm and sound of the music permits an easier conveyance of the emotions; through the cohesion of words, certain points can be accented, strengthening the emotional intensity. The rhythm allows the emotion to breathe in the song, allowing the listeners to know of its existence. With this awareness, the listener is able to relate to the singer, and in effect, to all the other listeners around the world.