The meaning of meaning, and stuff

    Last night, I saw a band called Ultrafaux. They were very, very good and you should look them up, but that isn't the point of the story. They said that they found out after choosing that name that it means "out of tune" in French. They did not say whether the name is affecting their bookings or sales in France, but they are a new band and perhaps they don't know yet. They then said that the name actually comes from a Django Reinhardt song called Ultra Fox and was meant as a tribute to him. (Did I not mention that they were a gypsy jazz band? Oh, that was probably important.)
    What I want to know and they didn't say is whether the Django number was a pun on the French phrase for "out of tune" in the first place. It makes more sense than anything; why else would a band playing in Paris choose an English title for a song, and one that doesn't make much sense in English either? Unfortunately, Ultra Fox isn't quite big enough to rate a Wikipedia entry 60 or 70 years along. Can you believe it? So I'll probably never know. But I like the idea that Django named his song after a pun on out of tune and then a band named themselves after a pun on his song, accidentally naming themselves out of tune. Only in Baltimore. (Did I not mention they're a gypsy jazz band from Baltimore?)