Mr. Lavoie, Canada and the world of music are richer with talents like yours. Your song Ils s’aiment [They Love Each Other] moves Bambi’s heart each times she listens to it. It is a tribute to the simplicity and beauty of love in times of war, destruction, and hatred.
For those who do not know it, Mr. Lavoie, a songwriter from Manitoba, got inspired by a highly disturbing TV footage from 1983 of a teenage couple, walking hand in hand, in the destroyed streets of Beirut. This is how his famous Ils s’aiment song was created.
This teenage couple could have been one of Bambi’s sisters and their boyfriends (now husbands). It could have been Bambi or any one of her childhood friends. Such a teenage couple could have been walking, hand in hand, in troubled areas of Haiti, Somalia, Ukraine, Russia, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, Syria, Iran, Irak, etc. They could have been living in Canada. It could have been you. It could be your children or one day your grandchildren, if any.
May only love, along with friendship and our shared humanity, have the final word in our war-torn world. May music keep making us dream of peace while singing for love.
Of note, Mr. Lavoie’s superb French-Canadian song became a big hit single, not just in North America, but also in Europe… and in Lebanon too. Impressively, in France, the song reached #2 fast, selling over two million copies (https://shorturl.at/epqN8). More recently, Mr. Daniel Lavoie Daniel was inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame (https://shorturl.at/abiD2). Bravo!
For your convenience, an English translation follows the YouTube video below (https://shorturl.at/lnEQV).
“They love each other
They love one another other like they did before
Before the threats and great torments
They love one another hesitatingly
Discovering love and discovering time
There’s someone who is mocking
I hear someone who is mocking
Mocking me, mocking whom?
They love one another like children
Love full of impatient hope
And in spite of the looks
Full of despair
In spite of the statistics
They love one another like children
Children of the bomb
Of catastrophes
Of the threat that’s brewing
Children of cynicism
Armed to the teeth
They love one another like children
Like before the threats and great torments
And if everything must be blown up
Collapse under our feet
Let them, let them, let them
Let them love one another
And if everything must be blown up
Collapse under our feet
Let them, let them, let them
Let them love one another
Children of the bomb
Of catastrophes
Of the threat that’s brewing
Children of cynicism
Armed to the teeth
They love one another other like they did before
Before the threats and great torments
They love one another other like they did before”.
