20 Comments

  1. Elias

    I think you are wrong about the jeans in the translation.
    She says ” collegienne aux bas bleus de methylene”, which means literally “college girl with blue stockings” – see, college is different in France and you could translate it as schoolgirl too, but the word “bleus” was related directly to the stockings of the school uniform – les bas – which is naturally a plural.
    Good luck with the translations!

  2. Muskanty

    In the chorus, methinks that when she says “Hello, Helli, t’es là”, the English equivalent would be “Hello, Helli, you’re there”. “T’es” being a contraction of tu es, or you are.

  3. c-loud

    “Lo de vie” is also “L’eau de vie” as they’re homophones. That would also make sense with “Lo aux amours diluviennes.”
    “Bleus” is plural because she’s talking about “bas bleus” which would be like leggings as someone else already pointed out.

  4. Nathanial karthigeyan

    Nice Song ..Nice voice ..Nice lyrics…of alizee mam….when i hear this song moi lolita i like to sing this song as it is but i cant … But trying…anyway thank you alizee mam..my God bless this mam and save her soul and her family souls amen

    • Darby

      Yes it’s hard to say why – she was a protégée of Mylene Farmer and she was underaged when this was released. Maybe her family wanted her to stay in France to finish school? It’s really hard for overseas artists (especially ones that have non-English hits) to make it in the US even now. But in the 90’s I imagine it was super hard. 🙂 Alizée was pretty big throughout the Franosphere though.

    • Darby

      Yes she might have been 15 – for some reason I thought she was 16 when it came out. Either way I personally think it’s borderline at best to have a teenager singing about being “Lolita.” But I have to admit the song is very catchy and it was a huge hit all over Europe in the late 90’s.

  5. Benjamin

    “Collégienne aux bas
    Bleus de méthylène”

    Any chance they could be talking about the typical blue of a school girl uniform?

    That seems to fit more within the context.

  6. Iveta

    Hello! I’m currently learning French and this is very helpful, as I remember this song from when I was younger. In the middle Europe too, this was such a hit. I know the videclip like I know my name😂 so I thought I should start learning with lyrics, that’s how I learned English anyway. So thank you so much for this, very helpful 🙂

  7. Anne

    The reference to the blue stockinged college girl MAY simply be a historical reference to the term used to dedcribe educated intellectual females? Or it could be darker knowing what we do about Lolita’s lifestyle.
    As far as “hello helli” is concerned: this is wrong. She is actually spelling out her name in French (I’m surprised none if the language students picked this up lol (No pun intended))
    Ell = L
    Ohh = O
    Ell = L
    Ee = I
    Tay = T
    Ahh = A

  8. manda

    i remember when this song came out and I thought she was so beautiful but clearly she was sooo young. but yeh it’s super catchy but not that i know the lyrics. i decided to pick up french again recently and thought of this song and finally looked up the lyrics and meanings haha. I agreed with the above comment she’s just spelling out her name when she sings L.O.L.I.T.A.?

    • Darby

      Yes Alizée was *super* young when this song was recorded (15) and was released (16 I believe). It’s actually really given me pause about having it on the site at all, but I hope I’m giving it some important context by showing how Alizée was essentially marketed as a product and that the song lyrics are kind of creepy. And yes I do think in that part she is spelling L.O.L.I.T.A. – I should probably update that bit. 🙂

      • MBB

        This was played at the time in the Netherlands too.
        While I was not much into music, it had a happy tune and I remember at the time trying to understand the lyrics, but I was not good in French.
        I’m glad it is up on the site, there are a lot of lines that Google Translate would not explain.
        I would have had no chance back then , even the few words I thought I understood I was off on.

        Even now I have trouble understanding the combined meaning.
        Like why does she have to bleed or laugh when she misspeaks?
        A slip of the tongue is accidentally telling something. But in Dutch (and English?) speaking with a forked tongue (like a snake) is usually associated to lying. But neither really explains it.

        I would argue that other then the association to the word Lolita, the lyrics are vague enough that the song is not that bad. It is knowing the age of the singer that makes it uncomfortable. Though your information suggests she may not have written it herself. (There was a picture of her in our highschool French book; she must have been around our age at the time but even at that age I thought she looked young! )

        What makes it *really* creepy is the music video released along with it. It has her demanding money from a guy while rejecting his affections.
        And then using that money to escape her mother and go dancing in the city.

        It is unclear to me if her mother is chastising her behavior or domestically abusing her.
        IBut the singer takes an even younger child (sister? daughter?) with her to the disco (brothel?) and leaves her alone on the dancefloor.

        I hoped the lycics would clear this up, but it is if possible more confusing now

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