So go the lyrics to Babylon Circus’s 2004 track Dances of Resistance from the superb album of the same name. You’ll notice that unlike the two previous songs I’ve mentioned from that album it’s not in French. You’ll also notice that it probably wasn’t written by a native English speaker.

To English ears the sentence “There is so much things to do” sounds very wrong¹. We instinctively know that it should be “There are so many things to do.” We know this regardless of our level of education and regardless of our level of anal-retentiveness.

We don’t need to consider whether something is a measurement or whether it’s a plural noun – we just know when to use “much” and when to use “many.”

We do this even in cases where a little thought might lead us to the wrong conclusion – for example: “I put on much more than three pounds this Christmas” – we dexterously realise that the “much” is referring to a measure of weight rather than a number of pounds and effortlessly use “much” instead of “many.”

So why is the sentence “I wish I had less things to do” not as instantly offensive to many of us even though the exact same “mistake” is being made?

Certain people will instantly correct you and point out that it should be “I wish I had fewer things to do.”

Don’t be too angry with them for noticing – for those who are aware of the rule, the word “less” does begin to sound just as awkward and out of place when used before plural nouns as a wrongly used “much”. But feel free to get angry with them if they believe they are performing some great service for the English language or they have a general air of smugness about them².

In my opinion, the reason we don’t notice the dodgy use of the word “less” is because its counterpart “more” doesn’t care whether it’s used to express “more people in the crowd” or “more music from the stage” – I suspect we simply apply the same internal rules of usage to the word “less” as we do to the word “more.”

But is it even a rule? Or is it, like the split infinitive, just a matter of style… according to Dictionary.com:

Modern standard English practice does not reflect this distinction. When followed by than, less occurs at least as often as fewer in modifying plural nouns that are not units or groups, and the use of less in this construction is increasing in all varieties of English: less than eight million people; no less than 31 of the 50 states. When not followed by than, fewer is more frequent only in formal written English, and in this construction also the use of less is increasing: This year we have had less crimes, less accidents, and less fires than in any of the last five years.

Indeed, it even gives the following as one of the definitions of less

6. fewer: less than a dozen.

The reality is, the language is evolving all the time and common usage is more important than the wishes of a few academics – something the guardians of the French language, The Académie Français do not want to hear.

Luckily in this case they have no need to exert any control – words such as beaucoup, trop, moins, plus don’t care whether they are used to compare plural nouns or measurements.

Those who believe that language should be kept sacred are fooling themselves. Every word we use is a bastardisation of a bygone word or phrase – the English language of 500 years ago is almost unrecognisable from our modern language – with each generation the language gets dumbed-downed by a population searching to find more efficient ways to communicate.

It also gets enriched and complicated by a population continually exploring ways to be more expressive³.

My favourite example of this is the French “aujourd’hui” – which evolved from French speakers saying “au jour d’hui” – literally “on the day of today.” This is a more explicit way of simply saying “today” but with constant use it became compressed into one word, lost its emphasis and came to mean just “today”.

And now, you will often hear, and often see in writing, the phrase “au jour d’aujourd’hui!” – the same need to be more expressive as before. But noone need fear that the process will result in a word for “today” with hundreds of letters – the opposite process of erosion and dumbing-down will ensure that does not happen.

Perhaps in a generation or two the use of sentences such as “there is too much things to do” will be in widespread usage, picked up on with frustration by the future’s anally retentive as incorrect long after the use of “less” before plural nouns has long since been accepted as grammatically correct.

Notes:

1. I’m starting to question that assertion as a Google search for the complete phrase “there is so much things to do” yields around 175,000 results and they can’t all be written by non-anglophones.
2. They’re either doing it for your benefit in a genuine attempt to impart some information, or they’re doing it to fiddle with their ego.
3. For anyone interested in language in all its complexity came to be in the first place, and why it really isn’t falling apart, please read The Unfolding of Language: An Evolutionary Tour of Mankind’s Greatest Invention by Guy Deutscher.

I’m surprised I didn’t take advantage of the Pope’s visit to my home town last month to post a translation of this song from my favourite French album.

Le Fils Caché Du Pape, written for the group by Mickaël Furnon (Mickey 3D) is one of the slower, creeping songs on La Belle Étoile, perhaps not with the instant rampant appeal of a Nina, a Perdu or a Sista but still a winner.

One of only three tracks on the album that contains no English lyrics at all (if you don’t include the instrumental Valsamourette). The others are L’envol and La Cigarette.

I’d like to translate La Belle Étoile in its entirety so over the next few weeks I’ll try to post one translation per week from the album.

As promised, today’s post is a translation from La Belle Étoile.

Marions-Nous Au Soleil (Let’s Get Married In The Sun), features Karina Zeviani and is the second track on La Belle Étoile which was the subject of the yesterday’s post.

A few pieces of interesting vocabulary to look at. I struggled to translate “ma caille” which means literally “my quail”. This is an affectionate term for a girlfriend and I searched my brainbox for English birdy equivalents but failed to find anything.

I’ve just performed my regular check for La Belle Étoile across the UK online music stores and it has recently become available on both iTunes and Amazon.

Unfortunately there is currently a problem with the Amazon widget creator which means that I have only been able to include seven tracks from the album on the widget. Luckily they are seven of the best.

Unless something spectacular happens over the next four weeks, I can confidently state that La Belle Étoile is the finest French language album of 2009. I love it.

I was privileged to be able to catch two performances by Babylon Circus (UPDATE: three – they returned several months later for another go!) while they were on the UK leg of their current European tour and given half a chance I fully intend to travel over to France and see them again in the new year.

They are one of the best live bands I’ve ever seen and I for one hope they gain the massive recognition they deserve.

La Belle Étoile, released in March 2009, is something of a musical departure for the band whose last album was release five years ago. Previous studio releases have been packed with hard ska and reggae beats and more than a dash of the revendicatif. This album is slightly more melodic and slightly more subtle and devastating with its attack on your whatever part of your brain is responsible for trapping catchy songs in the internal humbox.

Every base is covered from the thumping, concert-opening Perdu, the thumping, crowd-pleasing La Cigarette, to the understated Des Fois and Le Fils Caché Du Pape to the gorgeous voice of Karina Zeviani on Marions-nous au soleil and the embarrassingly-catchy Nina.

What can I say? I love it. I urge you to use the Amazon widget to the left to listen to extracts.

Tomorrow I will publish a translation of one of the tracks – haven’t decided which yet.

Babylon Circus, Bristol UK, Halloween 2009

I took the picture to the left at a Babylon Circus gig this Halloween just gone.

I’d seen them in London a few days previously and absolutely had to see them again before they left the UK to continue their tour in France where they were, incidentally, supported by another great French band, Les Gars Dans L’Coin.

It’s been nearly twenty years since I saw a performance so strong that I simply had to see it again as soon as I could.

Back then I was watching two or three gigs a week and back then I myself was touring the pubs and clubs of Southampton (UK) in a four piece cover band.

Having played guitar since I was old enough to say “can I play on your guitar dad?”, I found myself in the backseat position of drummer. There are two reasons for this. Firstly because I was offered the role by a band that already had their claws in the circuit and secondly, because if I had been allowed anywhere near the front of the stage I would have bored the audience to tears. Noone could ever have accused me back in the day of being a “people person.”

That’s not to say of course that the guy or girl behind the drumkit can’t be an entertainer – far from it, indeed in a live performance a talented drummer can take on the task of conducting the audience as well as the band. But that drummer wasn’t me.

Chris (me), Jason, Keith and Andy before a gig circa 1990

You can probably tell this from this photograph from when I was sixteen. I’m the miserable one on the left. That is the look of a guy who never got over not being the guitarist. Notice how even the lights around me are unimpressed.

So with this in mind I’ve been compiling the top ten things that make for a great live performance and I’ll be sharing them with you over the next couple of articles.

However before I do this, what I really want is some comments from you guys, so don’t be shy – leave a comment and let me know about some of the best bands you’ve ever seen and why they left such an impression.

Two weeks ago I was searching for something fresh. I was really looking for some new French singing rock band. I didn’t find much – I came across one track by Bony Hide which, although pretty good and indeed like gold when compared with some of the horrors I’d been listening to that day, didn’t really get under my skin.

What I did find that day that did get under my skin was a group called Les Gars Dans L’Coin (The guys in the corner). Having listened several times now to The Radioactive Beets Show and to their #8604 EP, I am a very big fan.

A couple of weeks before that I had discovered, just in time, thanks to the invisible hand of the God of Ska, that Babylon Circus were playing London on October 26th, a gig which turned out to be so good that I went to see them again the following Saturday in Bristol.

Well as it happens, Les Gars Dans L’Coin weren’t the support act for Babylon Circus the very next day in Dunkirk, France.

Take a look at some of these photos of the guys on tour and tell me you don’t want to see them live!

Which leads quite smoothly into the fact that I’m currently working on something of an epic post which is taking much longer than expected. Regular readers may have noticed a half-cocked post called “Eight things that make a great live band” appeared accidentally on Sunday night. I have since revised the title to the 12.5% more exciting “Nine things that make a great live band” and hopefully I’ll be publishing it either tomorrow or Thursday.

Listen to the extracts above and consider getting a copy of The Radioactive Beets Show – it’s absurdly good value at £4.99 from the Amazon MP3 store which, as I’ve mentioned before, integrates flawlessly with your iTunes library if necessary.

Here are the links to the band’s pages on Facebook and Myspace.

I’ve just come across this YouTube video. It’s Babylon Circus opening the Prix Europa 2009 with Perdu from their album La Belle Étoile.

I was glad to see this as they had opened with this song in London on the 26th October and it was an absolute stormer which set the tone for the whole gig. For some reason they didn’t open with it in Bristol last night (31st October).

The sound on the video is very good even if the introduction is somewhat understated and the rows of seated audience members look a bit lifeless.

I’d like to see if I can find more footage of this concert to see what became of the crowd after a few songs. I do hope they were allowed out of their seats!

I’m not really focused enough to write much but I wanted to write something while I was still deaf.

It’s 5am here in London and I’ve just driven back from Bristol after seeing Babylon Circus on the final night of the UK leg of their European tour.

They were brilliant again as they had been in London on Monday at The Jazz Café.

Being so impressed by the London gig I had travelled down to Bristol to catch them before they left the UK and I found myself in the middle of a student fancy dress Halloween party. What I’m doing there is classifying anyone younger than me as a student.

The party was in fact the Boom After Party held to celebrate the success of the Boomtown Fair. I should try to find out a bit more about what that means.

Having arrived at around 7pm I discovered that the band wouldn’t be on until after midnight and unfortunately I was driving. At least I am now in a position to tell you that they are great when you’re drunk and great when you’re sober. And this time, having no beer distractions meant I could plant myself at the front of the crowd right at the start and stay there until the end.

Luckily the two support acts were very good and I allowed a very lovely young lady to paint my face and waited…

If you’d like to see a few pics, including my ugly mug, check out this link to a quick photo album I’ve uploaded to Facebook.

The time will come when I decide to write my top ten list of the best French language albums of 2009.

You know what it’s like when you make a list like that – you’ve probably got three or four “no-brainers” which are going to be in there no matter what, and then you may have a dozen or more other albums from which you’re going to have to choose for the remaining spaces.

One thing I didn’t think I would have to think very hard about was the number one spot. Until today one album had towered above the rest – La Ruda’s Grand Soir.

Today I heard Babylon Circus’s 2009 album La Belle Étoile. Now I have a decision to make.

It’s incredibly good, in my opinion their best album yet. I was looking forward to seeing Babylon Circus live on the 26th October before I heard the album. Now I can’t wait.

All that whittering aside, here is a translation of one of the really catchy numbers on Grand Soir, possibly the best album of 2009.

The lyrics of La Parade de Gordon Banks refer to one of the most memorable moments in English football history – a superhuman, physics-defying save by Gordon Banks against Brazil in the 1970 World Cup Finals in Mexico. A game, unfortunately, that we (England) went on to lose 1-0.

I have embedded a YouTube video of the save below.

Thanks to the WordReference forums I was able to get my mind around the following bizarre lyric…

Ressortir du ventre is being used in this context to mean something similar to prendre aux tripes which means something that is gut-wrenching, gripping, in the sporting sense – for further detail you can read here.

I suspect that there is more of a story behind this song than I am aware of and I would be delighted if anyone has anything to say on the subject – please let me have your comments!

Here’s a lively track from the same album as J’aurais bien voulu – one of the first songs I translated here. Like J’aurais bien voulu, there’s a lot of good stuff going on within the lyrics as you can see below.