The French pop song “Dernière danse“ (English meaning: “Last Dance”; French pronunciation: der-nee-ayr dahns) is the greatest hit of French singer and songwriter Indila. Released and recorded in 2013, the song made it to the top of the pop charts of many European countries. The song was part of Indila’s debut album, Mini World.
Dernière danse Song background
The song’s lyrics and music video recount the tale of a young woman who is kicked out of a building onto the streets by an older woman. The song’s lyrics recount her wandering throughout the streets and metro of Paris facing hopelessness and sorrow. We believe the entire song is a metaphor for struggling in early adulthood, a difficult period of life faced by many young people.
Dernière Danse – French lyrics and English translation
Oh ma douce souffrance
Pourquoi s’acharner? Tu recommences
Je ne suis qu’un être sans importance
Sans lui, je suis un peu paro
Je déambule seule dans le métro
Oh my sweet suffering
Why attack? You start again
I am just a being without importance
Without it, I am a bit lost
I wander alone in the metro
Une dernière danse
Pour oublier ma peine immense
Je veux m’enfuir que tout recommence
Oh ma douce souffrance
One last dance
To forget my immense pain
I want to flee that everything starts again
Oh my sweet suffering
Je remue le ciel, le jour, la nuit
Je danse avec le vent, la pluie
Un peu d’amour, un brin de miel
Et je danse, danse, danse, danse, danse, danse, danse
I move the sky, day and night
I dance with the wind, the rain
A bit of love, a bit of honey
And I dance, dance, dance, dance, dance, dance, dance
Et dans le bruit, je cours et j’ai peur
Est-ce mon tour? Vient la douleur
Dans tout Paris, je m’abandonne
Et je m’envole, vole, vole, vole, vole, vole, vole
And in the noise, I run and I’m afraid
Is it my turn? The pain comes
I surrender myself to all of Paris
And I fly away, fly, fly, fly, fly, fly, fly
Que d’espérance
Sur ce chemin en ton absence
J’ai beau trimer
Sans toi ma vie n’est qu’un décor qui brille, vide de sens
Only hopelessness
On this path and your absense
I slaved away in vain
Without you life is just a shining decoration, empty of meaning
Je remue le ciel, le jour, la nuit
Je danse avec le vent, la pluie
Un peu d’amour, un brin de miel
Et je danse, danse, danse, danse, danse, danse, danse
I move the sky, day and night
I dance with the wind, the rain
A bit of love, a bit of honey
And I dance, dance, dance, dance, dance, dance, dance
Et dans le bruit, je cours et j’ai peur
Est-ce mon tour? Vient la douleur
Dans tout Paris, je m’abandonne
Et je m’envole, vole, vole, vole, vole, vole vole
And in the noise, I run and I’m afraid
Is it my turn? The pain comes
I surrender myself to all of Paris
And I fly away, fly, fly, fly, fly, fly, fly
Dans cette douce souffrance
Dont j’ai payé toutes les offenses
Écoute comme mon cœur est immense
Je suis une enfant du monde
In this sweet suffering
For which I paid all the infractions
Listen as my heat is huge
I am a child of the world
Je remue le ciel, le jour, la nuit
Je danse avec le vent, la pluie
Un peu d’amour, un brin de miel
Et je danse, danse, danse, danse, danse, danse, danse
I move the sky, day and night
I dance with the wind, the rain
A bit of love, a bit of honey
And I dance, dance, dance, dance, dance, dance, dance
Et dans le bruit, je cours et j’ai peur
Est-ce mon tour? Vient la douleur
Dans tout Paris, je m’abandonne
Et je m’envole, vole, vole, vole, vole, vole vole
And in the noise, I run and I’m afraid
Is it my turn? The pain comes
I surrender myself to all of Paris
And I fly away, fly, fly, fly, fly, fly, fly
Lyrics analysis
In addition to the French lyrics which we’ve translated into English below, we have hand picked several lines of grammatical interest and highlighted some key vocabulary words.
Whenever possible we have included links to WordReference (an online dictionary) and other pages on FrenchLearner so that you can gain further insights on words and grammar of interest.
Oh ma douce souffrance
This line translates to “Oh my sweet suffering”. The adjective doux translates to soft, sweet, gentle and pleasant. Douce souffrance is meant to be somewhat of an oxymoron.
Pourquoi s’acharner? To recommence
This line translates to “Why attack? You start again”. The verb s’acharner sur/contre quelqu’un means to hound, attack or go after somebody.
Je ne suis qu’un être sans importance
This line translates to “I am just a being without importance”. The French negation rule ne…que means “only”. In this line être doesn’t mean “to be”, but being as in human being (un être humain).
Je déambule seule dans le métro
This line translates to “I wander alone in the metro”. The verb déambuler translates to wander, meander or walk around.
Une dernière danse
This line (and the title of the song) translates to “A last dance”. The word dernier means last. In this situation it is being spelt “dernière” because danse is feminine (la danse).
Pour oublier ma peine immense
We translated this line to “To forget my immense pain”. The word peine translates to sorrow, grief, pain and anguish.
Je veux m’enfuir que tout recommence
This line was difficult to translate. Our translation was: “I want to flee that everything starts again”. The verb s’enfuir means to escape, take flight, run away or flee. The que in “que tout recommence” is a relative pronoun meaning which or that.
Je remue le ciel, le jour, la nuit
We translated this line to “I move the sky, day and night“. The verb reumer means to move, wiggle, shake and stir.
Je danse avec le vent, la pluie
This line translates to “I dance with the wind and rain”. This page offers a complete list of French weather terms.
Un peu d’amour, un brin de miel
This line translates to “A bit of love, a bit of honey”. Both un peu de and un brin de translate to “a bit of”.
Et dans le bruit, je cours et j’ai peur
This line translates to “And in the noise, I run and I’m afraid”. J’ai peur is an avoir (to have) expression that translates to “I am afraid”.
Dans tout Paris, je m’abandonne
This line is repeated twice during the song and translates to “I surrender myself to all of Paris“. The reflexive verb s’abandonner translates to to give yourself over to, to surrender to or to give way to.
Et je m’envole, vole, vole, vole, vole, vole, vole
This line translates to “And I fly away, fly, fly, fly, fly, fly, fly”. Translation of the verb s’envoler include to flee and to fly away.
J’ai beau trimer
This line translates to “I slaved away in vain”. The expression avoir beau + infinitive means to do something in vain. The translation of trimer is to slave away or to work your fingers to the bone.
Sans toi ma vie n’est qu’un décor qui brille, vide de sens
This poetic line translates to “Without you life is just a shining decoration, empty of meaning“. This line also employs the ne…que negation to mean “only”. The verb briller means to shine. The word sens has two translation including meaning and direction.
Dont j’ai payé toutes les offenses
We translated this line to “For which I paid all the infractions”. We believe that another loose translation for this line could “For which I paid for all my wrongdoings”.
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