A Pleasant Discovery

My French is better than Google's translator!

I've been listening to Daniele Balavoine's 1978 hit song, "Le Chanteur".

Interesting how different musical presentation is - I love that he just sticks his hands in his pockets! That bit at the end where he looks like he's undergoing some sort of monstrous transformation? Well, he's saying that he wants to (after achieving great fame) die unhappy but without regrets. (Considering he died in the mid 1980s in a helicopter crash in the deserts of Africa, he probably was unhappy, but in a different way than he meant in the song, I'm sure.)

Anyway, I can pick out some words here and there but wanted a better understanding of the song than my extremely rusty skills could manage. So first I found a good version of the French lyrics (not as easy as one might thing - lots of free lyrics sites out there but they often get lyrics wrong, even in English). 

Here are the first two stanzas (there's a reason you non-French speaking types are getting this):

Je m'présente, je m'appelle Henri
J'voudrais bien réussir ma vie, être aimé
Etre beau gagner de l'argent
Puis surtout être intelligent
Mais pour tout ça il faudrait que j'bosse à plein temps

J'suis chanteur, je chante pour mes copains
J'veux faire des tubes et que ça tourne bien, tourne bien
J'veux écrire une chanson dans le vent
Un air gai, chic et entraînant
Pour faire danser dans les soirées de Monsieur Durand

And here's the Google translation:

I m'présente, my name is Henry  (s/b something like "Let me introduce myself")
J'voudrais do well my life, to be loved (s/b "I want")
Be nice to earn money
Can be especially intelligent
But for all that would have j'bosse full time (s/b work hard, slave away, etc.)

I'm singing, I sing for my friends  (s/b "I'm a singer" - that one is like first month French!)
I Want to tubes and it runs well, runs well  (Idiomatic for "I want to make hit records" - Google gets a pass on that one)
I Want to write a song in the wind
A gay, chic and resulting  (it left out the word 'air', which I think is either a light song or an attitude)
To dance in the evening Mr Durand  (I'm pretty sure this is supposed to be "I will dance at the soirees of M Durand - soiree means 'evening' but is a very common word meaning an 'evening gathering', etc.)

For those who are concerned with the lyrics (that would pretty much be just me), this is pretty ridiculous - this isn't terribly idiomatic French in these two stanzas. The translator should do better than simply plugging in the first dictionary definition it comes to.

And for those who don't give a rat's ass about Europop, let this be a warning about how far to trust Google translator. Even if you use it, make sure you find someone with knowledge of the original language, or who knows what sort of mad scientist activity you'll end up involved in.