• As I pointed out Thursday, translation is not necessarily faithfulness. Mr Bragg's version of the Internationale is not a literal translation of Eugene Pottier's 1871 lyrics, which were meant to be sung to a different tune (that of the Marseillaise) and which share with the lyrics of that other historic French anthem a tendency to bloodymindedness and bombastic foolishness, as Theo not so neutrally pointed out. As a moment with Mr Bragg's lyrics would show by internal evidence, his are not an attempt to make a 19th century statement, but rather to combine 19th and 21st century views in an effective literary pastiche. The result is something called "folk music." The search for the authentic original version of a folk song constitutes a category error.

• As was pointed out, or sort of pointed out, by a jesting exchange in class, the ideology of capitalist ownership claims to affect all this because the music Pierre de Geyter wrote for Pottier's lyrics in 1888 is still under copyright in France until 2017. In the US, however, the music is in the public domain, while "Happy Birthday" continues to be "private property."

• As usual, the best place to look for information is that monument to the superiority of anarchism, the Wikipedia.

-- KevinChang - 06 Feb 2009

In the class today, I was particularly fascinated by the part of the lyrics that Professor Moglen coted: "Freedom is merely privilege extended Unless enjoyed by..." I wanted to find the whole sentence so I searched for the English translation of the lyrics and found this file: http://www.hymn.ru/internationale/internationale_pno_arr-en.pdf. However, I found that there is no such line in the lyrics. I think the file Professor Moglen played this afternoon is this one: http://folk.ntnu.no/makarov/temporary_url_20070929kldcg/internationale-en-billy_bragg_1990.mp3. However, the lyrics still don't match. Does anyone know which one is the translation of the original lyrics of Internationale?