J'en ai marre!

"J'en ai marre!"
Single by Alizée
from the album Mes Courants Électriques
Released February 2003
Genre French pop, dance-pop
Length 5:12
Label Polydor
Songwriter(s) Mylène Farmer
Producer(s)
Alizée singles chronology
"Gourmandises"
(2001)		 "J'en ai marre!"
(2003)		 "J'ai pas vingt ans"
(2003)

"Gourmandises"
(2001)		 "J'en ai marre!"
(2003)		 "J'ai pas vingt ans"
(2003)

"J'en ai marre!" (English: "I'm fed up!") is Alizée's fifth single from the album Mes Courants Électriques, written by Mylène Farmer and released in February 2003. It charted at number 4 in France and number 2 in Japan.

The release included the single version of the song followed by an instrumental version. Later on three remixes were made available in special editions of the single. Internationally, it was released as "I'm Fed Up!". In Japan, it was released as "Mon bain de mousse" ("My Foam Bath") along with a music video and a remix version of the song.

Content

Internationally, the song was released as the English language translation and re-recording "I'm Fed Up!".

The title translates roughly as 'I'm fed up with it,' an idiomatic French expression. Marre means "fed-up-ness". 'J'ai marre de x' would be a more conventional form, meaning, "I have fed-up-ness with x", where x is something one is fed up with. The j'en form leaves x implicit or to context, which changes during the song. 'En' means roughly 'it' or 'that' and is used similarly to the implicit and changing referents of 'that' in Meat Loaf's 'I won't do that'. The same form is used in the verse 'j'en ris' = 'I am laughing at/about it'.

The English translation is artistic rather than literal, lacking both the wordplay and some of the darkness of Mylène Farmer's French. In particular, the French "extrémistes à deux balles" translates literally to "extremists with two bullets", where "bullets" is also French slang for the old currency "Francs", used similarly to "bucks" for "dollars" or "quid" for British "pounds". This suggests English phases such as "two-penn'orth", "two-cents" or "two-bit", as in "my two penn'orth", "just my two cents" or "two-bit extremists", though as a post-9/11 recording, the French "bullets" also has a darker echo, reflecting the "shadow of bombs" earlier in the song. The French "Delits dociles" is a pun which may mean "docile offence" or "docile delight", and also echoes "de lit", "of bed", but the translation does not attempt to render this and replaces it by a simple filler, "Twisting up my toes". The whinging big sister and the idomatic French "annoying people who roll(drive) at 2km/h" of the chorus are both replaced by a different character, a stressed-out uncle, with various different but similarly annoying complaints.

The translation does however introduce some of its own novel English wordplay such as "I’m foamely ecstatic", which captures the playfulness and cross-line phrasing of the French the "mon etat aquatique" from another section of the song.

Live performances

The song is widely noted for its live TV performance routine which appeared on several French programmes as well as the UK's Top of the Pops. This featured distinctive choreography which, amongst other reactions, inspired the female "night elf dance" in the popular international video game 'World of Warcraft'.

Music video

The video, filmed on 4 February 2003 and directed by Olivier Megaton, premiered 19 February 2003 on M6. It's the first video for a song from Alizée's second album.

In the video, Alizée, dressed in a red jumpsuit, is enclosed in a glass cubicle, big enough for her to move freely. Some scenes show her creeping against the glass wall, some show her throwing a tennis ball towards the wall; one particular scene shows her throwing a camera to the ground and smashing it in the process. Throughout the video, water is poured into the cubicle, making Alizée wet. In the middle of the video, i.e. towards the final chorus, Alizée punches the cubicle and it breaks.

Formats and track listings

French CD Single

  1. "J'en ai marre !" – 4:35
  2. "J'en ai marre !" (Instrumental Mix) – 5:05

French CD maxi single

  1. "J'en ai marre !" (Single Version) – 4:35
  2. "J'en ai marre !" (Soft Skin Club Mix) – 7:40
  3. "J'en ai marre !" (Bubbly Club Remix) – 7:50
  4. "J'en ai marre !" (My Goldfish is Under me Remix) – 3:40

French 12" vinyl single

A Side:

  1. "J'en ai marre !" (Soft Skin Club Mix) – 7:40

B Side:

  1. "J'en ai marre !" (Bubbly Club Remix) – 7:50
  2. "J'en ai marre !" (My Goldfish is Under me Remix) – 3:40

Charts and sales

References

  1. ↑ "Archívum – Slágerlisták – MAHASZ" (in Hungarian). Rádiós Top 40 játszási lista. Magyar Hanglemezkiadók Szövetsége. Retrieved 2010-12-08.
  2. ↑ "Polish Airplay Charts - Lista krajowa 27/2003". PiF PaF Production. Archived from the original on October 22, 2007. Retrieved November 18, 2016.
  3. ↑ http://spanishcharts.com/showitem.asp?interpret=Aliz%E9e&titel=Moi%2E%2E%2E+Lolita&cat=s
  4. ↑ "Ultratop − Goud en Platina – singles 2003". Ultratop. Hung Medien.
  5. ↑ "French single certifications – Alizée – J'en ai marre!" (in French). Syndicat National de l'Édition Phonographique.
  6. ↑ InfoDisc : Les Certifications (Singles) du SNEP (les Disques d'Or) Archived March 30, 2014, at the Wayback Machine.
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