Parade Era songs including 'Come On'!

Did you know that the song 'Come On' was originally written in France in 1985 whilst Prince lived there / worked on Under The Cherry Moon film?

It was originally called 'Comment?' (What in French) which is pronounced the same as 'Come on' in French. As in... "Comment Baby? Comment tell me now?"

Would love to hear a copy of the original french lyrics version.

What evidence do you have that it was written in 1985?

Considering that Prince doesn't speak French, this all sounds like complete
fabrication to me. Where exactly does this "infomation" come from?

BorisFishpaw said:

How do you know he doesn't speak french?

I won't totally dismiss it. You don't have to speak French to sing in French or any other language. Singers/Musicians do it all the time, expands their audience. If this is true I'd luv 2 hear it. Prince in any language 'bout 2 sound damn hot!!!

'Avez-vous un crayon?' - that's French.

Singingboy said:

YOUR AVATAR IS WAY 2 CUTE.
But damn U got some big azz thighs!

purplecorvette1 said:

Jill Jones mentioned it.

Singingboy said:

Come in french is "Viens "

Cool.

purplebutterfly2 said:

Not the way he pronounced it.

Genesia said:

lol
I let a french dude listen to the french part of Girls and Boys and he said it actually didnt make much sense.

Especially pronouncing 'tre in etre
"vous etre belle"

sorry if im wrong.

muirdo said:

Vous êtes très belle is "you are very beautiful." He pronounces that correctly.

Efan said:

ahhhhh
didnt realise thats what he was saying
thanks for clearing that up.

French is a beautiful language.

BorisFishpaw said:

He spoke French in "Under the Cherry Moon" film & sang French lyrics on some of the "Parade" songs.

Yes, i used to think he said Vous etre belle, and I was studying French at the time and thought, hey thats wrong, but then I realised it was Vous etes tres belle which sounds almost the same but is gramatically correct.

geminaurus said:

Only a couple of lines. I'm sure he knows a few French words and can string
one or two sentences together (as can most people), but that's not the same
as being able to speak French.

The opening poster claims that he wrote a whole song in French, and that
the track was an early version of 'Come On', written in 1985. Something that
no-one else has ever heard of or mentioned in 23 years. Unless the poster
can provide some kind of evidence, or at least a source, then it looks like
pure BS to me.

muirdo said:

its pronounced fine

and it's
'vous etre tres belle'

(that is the only french line he sings, maybe you asked him to translate something that was actually english)

I'm sure he would speak a little. the 'avay voo an cray on' is so hamming it up, but i'm sure most would have got that

I'm going to try and translate the french passage, but its been a while since I lived over there.. bit rusty ( i could ask a french collegue about it too), any frenchies in the house? maybe a dutchie could help

you were on the other side of the room

something about dancing strong

I smelt your perfume

your smile told me that i should come over and talk to you

on the dance floor baby

you told me how

oh yes baby baby

sex (something)

you can't resist me

did you like that

I will (do something) with my bedroom

(something about a sister)

flowers in your (something)
love in your arms

make love make love

we'll (something)


Like I said, very rusty with translation. Anything that doesn't make sense is as likely to be about my skills as it not making sense (good to practice these things though)

Anyway, you can definately sing in a languages you can't speak HELLO! OPERA

plus pretty sure from her accent that blossom dearie wasn't the most fluent in the language and she sang french shit allll the time

BorisFishpaw said:

comm ent (tee hee hee)

Prince writing a whole song in french could just equate to a few words to string together a couple of sentences

alot of his lyrics aren't exactly the most complex of prose

shit, that's why i like them.. simple and to the point

Sock ray blue!

TheMightyCelestial said:

ok I actually had to read that about 5 times before I got it

total fabrication. if any of other argument doesn't convince anyone
just listen to the song "come on" and try to imagine how that would
have been written in 1985.

the beat and arrangement is pure prince 1996-1999 and the lyrics are
as far away from anything "parade" as you could get.

yes yes, the song could be re-arranged and the lyrics re-written but
even then it would be a very long stretch indeed to turn a 1985 prince
production into something like "come on".

also, the supposed original title "comment" being rewritten into the
later title "come on" symply because of phonetic similarities is a
complete shot in the dark.

no truth to this at all.

Its possible, but a highly reworked version if so.
Comment does sounds very like how you say 'Come On'
Comment means 'How'' not 'what' though.

Prince often writes songs and saves them for sometimes years later (much of GB was written and recorded in diff versions in 86/87)

Prince obviously knows a bit of French and he also had a translator about who could have assisted.
[Edited 8/26/08 19:33pm]

robinesque said:

The songs basically tells you after the french verse what it is in English
But my Step Mum is French and she didn't understand it very well either but hey the song sounds good

MetalMonkey said:

well i didn't want to cheat...

BorisFishpaw said:

Didn't he address the crowd in Frnech at Bercy for a few minutes before a concert there? I remember reading that in the Vault.

TheFreakerFantastic said:

it's worth picking up the parade sheet music if you get a chance, as far as i know it's the only way you can get officially published lyrics for this album

There were quite a few lyrics i had misheard before i got the score!

there's a nice picture in it too that i haven't seen elsewhere