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I've always loved the song Pour Que Tu M'aimes Encore by Céline Dion; but I've never really understood the meaning of that one sentence in the chorus:

J'irai chercher ton cœur, si tu l'emportes ailleurs.

Même si dans tes danses, d'autres dansent tes heures.

What does it mean? I mean if I translate it, using my (limited) knowledge, it would be: "Even in your dances, others dance your hours." But that doesn't really makes sense.

What do you guys think?

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    Your translation is exact. The fact is that for most people, this sentence is not understandable. Some will say that the songwriter had no other rhyme. Others that the man the singer is talking to... well, enjoys the life. I am unsure what Goldman (the songwriter) had in mind, so I will not even try to answer this, but the question is justified. It was also asked on Yahoo and WordReference, if you want to have a look at the answers there.
    – Chop
    Commented Jul 20, 2015 at 5:56
  • note that I wouldn't write a full stop after "ailleurs", because for me the two lines are in the same sentence.
    – radouxju
    Commented Jul 20, 2015 at 13:13
  • @Chop yeah I only did that because I couldn't understand the meaning, so the translation became exact and "robotic".
    – Jean
    Commented Jul 20, 2015 at 13:27
  • @radouxju But don't you put a full stop at the end of every line in a poem?
    – Jean
    Commented Jul 20, 2015 at 13:29
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    You start each line with a capital letter, but from what I know you otherwise usually use the same punctuation as in prose. Some author (e.g. Apollinaire) even removed all punctuation marks
    – radouxju
    Commented Jul 20, 2015 at 14:04

2 Answers 2

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On peut risquer une interprétation qui bien sûr rompt la rime et est beaucoup plus verbeuse :

D'autres que moi dansent avec toi durant les heures pendant lesquelles tu danses.

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  • C'est assez raisonnable, merci !
    – Jean
    Commented Jul 19, 2015 at 16:05
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As a French mothertongue, I must admit that I don't manage to understand this sentence. I don't understand how one could dance someone else's hours. An hypothesis I had is that there was a typo and instead of "heures", it would be "heurs", which can mean mood. But even this may be senseless. Now, in 2024, with ChatGPT, the answer GPT gave was ""Danser les heures de quelqu'un d'autre" est une expression poétique qui signifie passer du temps avec quelqu'un d'autre, partager des moments intimes ou des activités avec cette personne. Dans le contexte de la chanson, cela pourrait représenter le fait que même si d'autres personnes partagent les mêmes moments ou activités avec la personne aimée, cela ne diminue pas l'importance de la connexion entre les deux amoureux. C'est une façon imagée de dire que même si d'autres personnes sont présentes dans la vie de quelqu'un, cela ne change pas l'intensité des sentiments qu'ils ont l'un pour l'autre.". It is quite easy to accept the explanation but it is still complicated to reach this interpretation to this specific sentence.

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    ChatGPT and the likes are well known to fabricate replies, something often referred to as hallucinations. You really should provide actual references to this meaning or avoid mentioning it in your reply.
    – jlliagre
    Commented Apr 26 at 16:35
  • Please do not submit answers generated by AI including ChatPT. stackoverflow.com/help/ai-policy
    – livresque
    Commented Apr 27 at 0:39

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