Poor Little Gay Boy
By: James Finn
Tags: LGBTQ, Music, French, Equality, Creative Non Fiction

Poor Little Gay Boy

An English translation of Renaud’s classic ballad

Cover art from Remaud’s 2002 studio album ‘boucan d’enfer,’ or “noise from hell.”

Renaud’s celebrated “Little Faggot”

Singer/songwriter Renaud is a French legend, an icon of pop music who has sung for decades in a voice brimming with love and respect for ordinary French people. He composes lyrics that poke gentle fun of their foibles, criticizing their faults (and his) while celebrating their strength, humanity and basic goodness.

The French take on homosexuality is complex, far more so than many English speakers imagine. We remember how Oscar Wilde found refuge in Paris after being imprisoned at hard labor in England for crimes against nature. But we forget that French legal tolerance has had more to do with philosophies of secularism than with widespread cultural acceptance of gender and sexual differences.

Growing up gay or transgender in France has never been easy, particularly in the provinces.

When I first heard Renaud’s Petit Pédé (Little Faggot) in about 2010, it blew me away with its raw power and unswerving honesty. Renaud released the song in 2002 with his album Boucan d’enfer, or noise from hell.

He dared a lot with that album, exploring despair in the death of a Puerto Rican girl caught in the 9/11 attack in New York City, mourning the death of a young Afghan girl who died in the American counter-attack, and commiserating with the widow of a Corsican nationalist — all politically hot topics.

But Petit Pédé touched me the most of all the songs on the album. Some call it crude or even condescending, asking how a straight man like Renaud has the right to sing the words he wrote.

I cried when I heard it the first time, and I still cry sometimes. I’ve never encountered an English translation that does the song justice, so I’m attempting my own. As poor as my effort is, I believe I’ve captured something, and I hope you have a listen and a read at the same time. Just press play and read on.

For those interested in how I produced my very loose (but I hope emotionally faithful) translation, I’ve made some notes down below under the original French.

Little Faggot

You fled the hills moldering

Under clouds of jeer and mock

Your neighbors’ contempt

And your parents’ cruel blind shock

At 15 when you learned

You were made for the queers

When you announced to your mother

How well I imagine the tears

Poor little faggot

If you’d been born Black, no sweat

No need for news or bulletin

But such a different story

For you to confess, “I only love men”

It’s not you fault, it’s just nature

As Aznavour¹ told us all so well

But at the time of first love

Oh, how it must have been hell

Poor little faggot

You tried all your life to pretend

To be what they call couth

You worked so hard to behave like a man

And to hide your childhood truth

In the hills where you were born

They treated you like a mange scarred mutt

It’s no good to be a faggot

When you’re surrounded by the fucked

Poor little faggot

In Paris you landed without delay

In the backrooms of the Marais

There you began to find yourself

In that ghetto oh so gay

The brazen homos of the bars

Found in you their inner lost boy

Oh how they adopted you fast

Even if just for your ass

Poor little faggot

You let yourself run wild

Fucking much more than was wise

Reveled in freedom denied as a child

But thank God you always played nice

You’ve protected yourself from the scourge

That struck down so many loved pals

With Satan’s own virus sounding a dirge

You never ever go out unsheathed

Poor little faggot

One day soon you’ll find a man

With a mustache or maybe shaved smooth

For just a few days or even for life

But into his home you will move

You may dream of a child, you two

So many orphans pining for love

But no, such care is not for the likes of you

The law says it cannot be done

Poor little faggot

You know life is often to rue

Only seldom sweet or much fair

Just look at me who is nothing like you

Of pain life dished more than my share

No matter you’re queer or you’re straight

In the end life is so much the same

For only love can heal all our wounds

And for you I shall wish it with haste

Poor little faggot

Poor little faggot

Original French for comparison. See notes below for explanations.

T’as quitté ta province coincée

Sous les insultes, les quolibets

Le mépris des gens du quartier

Et de tes parents effondrés

À quinze ans quand tu as découvert

Ce penchant paraît-il pervers

Que tu l’as annoncé à ta mère

J’imagine bien la galère

Petit pédé

T’aurais été noir, pas de lézards

Besoin de l’annoncer à personne

Mais c’est franchement une autre histoire

Que d’avouer “j’aime les hommes”

C’est pas de ta faute, c’est la nature

Comme l’a si bien dit Aznavour

Que c’est quand même sacrement dur

À l’âge des premiers amours

Petit pédé

Toute sa vie à faire semblant

D’être “normal”, comme disent les gens

Jouer les machos à tout bout de champ

Pour garder ton secret d’enfant

Dans le petit bled d’où tu viens

Les gens te traitaient pire qu’un chien

Il fait pas bon être pédé

Quand t’es entouré d’enculés

Petit pédé

À Paris tu as débarqué

Dans les backrooms du Marais

Dans ce ghetto un peu branché

Tu as commencé à t’assumer

Pour tous les homos des bars gays

Tu étais un enfant perdu

Tu as été bien vite adopté

Même si c’était pour ton cul

Petit pédé

Tu t’es laissé aller parfois

À niquer plus que de raison

C’est ta liberté, c’est ton droit

T’as heureusement fais attention

Tu t’es protégé de ce mal

Qui a emporté tant de tes potes

Grâce à ce virus infernal

Ne sortez jamais sans capotes

Petit pédé

Bientôt tu trouveras un mec

Un moustachu ou un gentil

Alors tu te maqueras avec

Pour quelques jours ou pour la vie

Rêverez peut-être d’un enfant

Y en a plein les orphelinats

Sauf que pour vous papa-maman

C’est juste interdit par la loi

Petit pédé

Tu seras malheureux parfois

La vie c’est pas toujours le pied

Moi qui ne suis pas comme toi

Le malheur j’ai déjà donné

Qu’on soit tarlouze ou hétéro

C’est finalement, le même topo

Seul l’amour guérit tous les maux

Je te le souhaite et au plus tôt

Petit pédé

Petit pédé

Translator’s notes

In daring to translate Renaud’s classic Petit Pédé, I faced enormous difficulties. Much of the power of the song lies in its contradictions.

The most evident contradiction of this ballad is its minor key. Renaud transforms a jaunty little tune into something like a dirge merely by transposing it. It’s still catchy as hell, but it sounds infinitely sad.

But perhaps the most important contraction lies in the clever lyrics, which manage to look like simple rhyming verse while juxtaposing high language with street language.

From the beginning, Renaud sets us up for a shock. His first verse is slightly elegant, rhymey but not singsong, peppered with elevated vocabulary.

T’as quitté ta province coincée

Sous les insultes, les quolibets

Le mépris des gens du quartier

Et de tes parents effondrés

To describe a kind of insult, he chooses quolibets from Latin, not as unusual as it would seem in English, but not ordinary. For “shocked,” he selects effondrés, probably for the rhyming scheme, but also because of its high, metaphoric flavor.

He teases us a bit in the second verse with pervers for perverse, warning us something unusual is about to happen. But pervers is still high language rather than street language, and he rhymes it with the fairly elegant galère, in the sense of trial or tribulation.

Then he slaps us in the face with his first use of the mini-refrain petit pédé, which is a vulgar expression that closely matches the emotional power of ‘little faggot” in English. I have taken the liberty of translating it as “poor little faggot” to match the tone in Renaud’s voice and to more accurately capture the sense of the lyrics.

The rest of the song continues a cycle of high language contrasted with vulgar expressions, presumably for emotional effect. Each verse ratchets up the emotional disconnect, the contradictions as disconcerting as the lively melody sung in a minor key.

Renaud reaches a climax of vulgarity in the final verse with his use of tarlouze, a street slur whose Parisian connotation is impossible to capture in translation. It means roughly “faggot” or “queer,’ but those words don’t capture the classism and snobbery of tarlouze, which comes from québécois argot rooted in language long forgotten in metropolitan French. It derides not only the queer, but the provincial or rustic. It implies a sense of weakness or femininity, and some translators choose “sissy,” but I feel that’s rather wide of the mark.

In recognizing all the contradictions and language peculiarities in Renaud’s work, I quickly abandoned any notion of direct translation. Likewise, I have chosen not to attempt a strict rhyming scheme. Instead, I’ve done my best to capture Renaud’s underlying emotional contradictions while using just enough meter and rhyme to preserve the idea that his work is verse.

I have never encountered a satisfying English translation of Petit Pédé, and while this one is lacking in many ways, I offer it in the hopes of introducing you to a remarkable French singer and his astoundingly powerful song.