I enjoyed the challenge of transcribing this—with lots of help from Google Translate to make sure I got the accents and spelling right:


DARLING, JE VOUS AIME BEAUCOUP
Words and music by Anna Sosenko, ©1935.
As sung by Hildegarde in a British Pathé Pictorial.

SPOKEN: Now this song is about an English boy who falls in love with a French girl. Of course, not knowing the French language, he doesn't know just how to express his love, but this is how he manages it. Ooh-la-la!

VERSE: Je suis ici patrie long,
Mais, s'il vous plaît, écoute ma song.
Vous avez un grand appeal.
To speak my heart [n'est pas]* facile.
Permettez-moi to expliquer
In my own peculiar way
Exactly what mon cœur would say:

CHORUS 1: Darling, je vous aime beaucoup.
Je ne sais pas what to do.
Vous avez completely stolen my heart.

Matin, midi et le soir,
Toujours wondering how you are—
That's the way I felt right from the start.

Ah, chérie, my love for you is très, très fort.
Wish my French were good enough; oh, I'd tell you so much more.

Mais j'espère that you comprit
All the little things you mean to me.
Darling, je vous aime beaucoup.
I love you.

CHORUS 2: Oh, my darling, vous êtes très jolie.
Qu'est-ce que c'est vous do to me?
Absolutely je suis en la trance.

Tout le temps j'espère que vous
Dream of me a little too.
Ah, chérie, je pense this is romance.

Quand nous sommes alone and you are in my arms,
Je remercie le bon Dieu for all your lovely charms.

Dites-moi: do you love me too?
Je suis happy if you do.
Darling, je vous aime beaucoup.
Oh, I love you so, I do!
I do love you.


* I inserted "n'est pas" at this point to make sense of the line, but I couldn't make out what she really sings.

Nat King Cole recorded a shorter version of this in 1954. He sings only chorus 1 with a partial repeat, and some words given in French above are sung by him in English.

Wikipedia has the following comment:

When the song was written, "je vous aime" (using the respectful second person plural) was the normal way of saying "I love you" in French - until a threshold of intimacy had been reached, or in public. It has come to sound quaint, as now one would normally say "je t'aime" (using the familiar second person singular), regardless of the level of intimacy or location.