I need y'all to understand how fucking important it is that their lovemaking song was La Vie En Rose.
Those translated covers you hear on TikTok take their lyrics from a Louis Armstrong cover of the original French version sung by Edith Piaf. The English lyrics are beautiful but there are some things lost in translation, which is why I love that they had Izzy sing the original French version while Stede and Ed are making love.
Edith Piaf's version of the song is all about the intensity of love and finding love after a trying time. Her vocals are incredible and bleed all the different emotions she feels while singing. Izzy starts with the English translation of the song, which goes:
But a closer translation to the original French would be:
"Quand il me prend dans ses bras; When he takes me into his arms/ Il me parle l'a tout bas; He speaks to me softly/ Je vois la vie en rose; And I see life through rose-colored glasses."
Obviously this is fine and dandy, but it's the translation of the original French lyrics used later in the episode that really get me. Izzy sings this:
Which translates to this:
"He speaks words of love to me/ They are every day words/ And they do something to me.
"He has entered into my heart/ A bit of happiness/ That I know the cause of.
"It's only him for me/ And me for him, for life/ He told me, he swore to me, for life."
It's that last verse that the English version just wouldn't be able to capture. The translated version of that verse is about angels and love songs and mentions nothing of a vow to love one another for life.
That's what's so special to me about the French version of the song being used in that moment. Edith Piaf sings as a person who has lived through so much pain and suffering (which she definitely did as a French woman living through World War II) and finally finds comfort and peace in the arms of her beloved.
That is ultimately what Ed and Stede are for one another. Safe harbors, calm waters, peaceful days and nights in each other's presence. They bicker and argue and hurt one another, but they always come back together so easily. Stede was hurt and needed reassurance, needed to prove to himself that he wasn't a whim, needed to feel the security of Ed in his arms. And perhaps they shouldn't have gone all the way that night, but they're both impulsive and obsessed with each other and they needed something.
It's that song that lets me know they're gonna be okay. They're intense and impulsive but they compliment each other. They fit together perfectly, and they find comfort in one another no matter what's happened to them in the past. They need their harbors, their anchors, each other. They'd never leave each other behind. They make each other's lives la vie en rose.
(Edit: fixed a translation error)
