Boots, Stiefel, Stivali, Bottes

August 6, 2016 9:03 AM

We started watching Orphan Black last night and were suitably impressed by Eileen's German take on Nancy Sinatra's classic These Boots were Made For Walking. This led to a discussion of how such a clipped song would be hard to do in Italian.

Hard, but not impossible. In addition to German, Eileen did it not only in Italian, but also in French.

(Bonus tracks- Muguette with French/English sub-titles. And Dominique Michel without.)

posted by BWA (14 comments total)

Also: Crispin Glover In English, but on another planet.
posted by usonian at 11:01 AM on August 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

I was studying Italian on Duolingo a few months back and the absolute best sentence I got was:

il coltello é nello stivalo

most Italian sentence ever!!!! lol!!!
posted by supermedusa at 11:48 AM on August 6, 2016 [5 favorites]

also Orphan Black is fantastic!!! enjoy :)
posted by supermedusa at 11:49 AM on August 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

supermedusa: "I was studying Italian on Duolingo a few months back and the absolute best sentence I got was:

il coltello é nello stivalo

most Italian sentence ever!!!! lol!!!"

The Sicilian version would be, Il coltello è nella parte posteriore. Sicilian here.
posted by Splunge at 1:25 PM on August 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

Nobody's mentioned KMFDM's version yet?
posted by suetanvil at 7:12 PM on August 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

Interesting: while the translation of the lyrics for the German version is spot on, and the French is pretty good, the Italian (by Vito Pallavicini, no less!) is just... off - so almost proving your suspicion that it's hard to do. What's worse, his fairly inelaborate transposition of the original is further hampered by Eileen's pretty approximate Italian phrasing (as opposed to her competent delivery of both the French and German).

Vito must have noticed something, though: a year later he rewrote parts of this version for Dalida, whose Stivaletti rossi has a better title, chorus and last verse. Still...

Even just going for a more-or-less straightforward lyrical translation, it's not like it's impossible - here's a try:


Dici sempre che mi vuoi un gran bene.
Dici che mi ami, ma io già so
Che fai il filo a chi non dovresti filare,
E che un’altra ha da te quel che non ho.

Ma ho gli stivaletti pronti
A farsi un giro senza te,
E se tu non stai attento si portan via anche me.


Me le racconti quando io ti voglio sincero,
Ti dai al gioco quando sai che perderai.
Mi dici “cambio” quando sai che non è vero -
Allora prima o poi sarò io che cambierò.

E ho gli stivaletti pronti
A farsi un giro senza te,
E se non stai attento si portan via anche me.


Tu giochi, ma dimentichi la candela.
Accendi cuori e giammai ti brucerai.
Ma anch'io ho trovato una nuova fiamma
Che mi consuma come mai più proverai...

Ho gli stivaletti pronti
A farsi un giro senza te,
E se non stai attento si portan via anche me.

(Pronti, stivaletti?
Ce ne andiamo!)


Some other (more or less) Italian takes on These Boots:
- Adriano Celentano's rewritten cover Bisogna far qualcosa (with Ligabue, in a live episode from his ecumenical Rockpolitik phase)
- Baustelle's Panico!, a homage to Lee Hazelwood's original
- three Italianate covers of the original: Planet Funk, Amanda Lear, and Le Braghe Corte (feat. Rocco Siffredi, of all people...).
posted by progosk at 5:43 AM on August 7, 2016 [3 favorites]

I wonder if one of the dialects would work better? Isn't Napolitano a bit more clipped? (I may be confusing it with one of the other dialects.)
posted by lazuli at 8:41 AM on August 7, 2016

Petula Clark did French, Italian, and German versions of "Downtown" -- kinda. The French version uses "Dans le temps" as the refrain, which sounds phonetically like "downtown" but is a totally different song lyrically, about a break-up (that link has a translation of the lyrics). The Italian version is "Ciao Ciao," about meeting up with a former love at the seaside. The German version, called "Downtown," is a more literal translation, I think (based on my very limited German).
posted by lazuli at 9:01 AM on August 7, 2016 [2 favorites]

I wonder if one of the dialects would work better?

In a dialect it would be... different?

What gives you the impression that Italian doesn't work? The metrics of the song are pretty simple, and not particularly hard to match with Italian words.

Or... is your point maybe just regarding the title? Certainly: matching the semantic efficiency of the original seven syllables, given the Italian for "boots" being four-syllable stivaletti, and "walking" being the further four syllables of camminare, that's unlikely to be solveable without some poetic license. In which case, Neapolitan being known for it's melodic pent and inherent lingual optimising strategies - a lot of the best Italian rap is Neapolitan, here's a taste (dialect & translation) - might offer some solution; or maybe Sicilian, but... the result would be weirdly folkloric.
posted by progosk at 10:43 AM on August 7, 2016

Oh, and: the lyrics to Petula Clark's Ciao Ciao? Vito Pallavicini again.
posted by progosk at 10:47 AM on August 7, 2016 [1 favorite]

Or... is your point maybe just regarding the title?

Yeah, I was responding to the idea in the FPP that Italian isn't "clipped" enough to work super-well, and progosk's comment that the translations don't align super-well. The Italian version, to me, sounds like she's rushing to get through all the syllables, and I suspect there are Italian dialects that would shorten the phrasing and give the singer a bit more room.
posted by lazuli at 10:50 AM on August 7, 2016

Oh, ha, sorry, you're progosk. Didn't notice the username. Yes, I was responding to your point about syllables.
posted by lazuli at 10:51 AM on August 7, 2016

Estas botas son para caminar: Gloria Benavides / Lupita Carrera / Rita Sáenz / Leda Moreno / Hilda Aguirre
posted by sukeban at 1:38 PM on August 7, 2016 [1 favorite]

- Adriano Celentano's rewritten cover Bisogna far qualcosa yt (with Ligabue, in a live episode from his ecumenical Rockpolitik phase)

Then too, he was happy to take a shot at faux English. Good times, good times....

(Weird update of same.)
posted by BWA at 7:34 AM on August 8, 2016