Michelle

I agree with the person who wrote that the lyric is likely just about an English guy, perhaps Paul himself while touring France, who is infatuated with a lovely French girl. The lyric mostly states very primal emotions about desire because anything more complicated is not possible due to the language barrier. The honesty is in that, despite the language barrier, there is really nothing more that could be said anyway. The cleverness is in using the French language, which not only sounds romantic to the English-speakers, but also uses the language barrier as a metaphor for what cannot be expressed through words about feelings, in any language. Using minor chords where he does also emphasizes the angst about wanting to say more than words allow. It's an amazing song in that, though the lyric is not sad, it produces an ambivalence of emotion, combining joy and melancholy. A rich palette in such a deceptively simple song. Between '66 and '67 Paul was at his peak that few writers can match. In my opinion, Paul wrote the 2nd and 3rd best American songs ever in Yesterday and Eleanor Rigby (the best being Mancini's and Merecer's Moon River).