MULTIMEDIA-ENGLISH
Joan of Arc (OMD)
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4:02
Video page URL
https://multimedia-english.com/videos/music/joan-of-arc-omd-2121
Description

One of the hits by the British band Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (aka OMD)


This song is also known as "Maid of Orleans", the nick she received.

Transcript

If Joan of Arc had a heart
Would she give it as a gift
To such as me who longs to see
How an angel ought to be

Her dream's to give her heart away
Like an orphan on a wave
She cared so much
She offered up her body to the grave

Explanations

IF JOAN OF ARC HAD...= This is a second conditional (if+past... would), so the fact stated in this clause is improbable or unreal (that's why we use the "unreal past" HAD). Does he say this because she's dead (so doesn't have a heart), or because she was not prepared for human love?

GIFT= Present.

TO SUCH AS ME= To a person like me.

LONG= If you long for something you have a strong desire for it, especially if it's something very difficult or impossible to get, so it is usually mixed with sadness.

ORPHAN= A child with no parents.

WAVE= The rolling formation on the surface of the sea.

OFFERED UP= Give as a sacrifice.

GRAVE= The place where a dead person rests in peace (in the ground), usually in a cemetery.

Meaning

These are very strange (and short) lyrics indeed. The group said that they were fed up of so many love songs and wanted to give it a different turn. In this song, they talk about love but in a very unusual way. He is in love with her, she's like an angel, but she had a higher destiny and offered her love and her life to God and France.

This young peasant girl from the 15th century is a French heroine who at the age of 15 received from God the mission of liberating France from the British. She was finally captured and sold to the British, who burnt her at the stake when she was only 19. But too late, she started something unstoppable and France finally became free from British rule, Joan became forever a national heroine and later she was declared a saint by the Catholic Church.

Strangely enough, this girl, enemy number 1 for the British army, has always generated authentic fascination on the English, who have produced plays, films, poems, books and songs in her honour.