Looking at the lyrics to La Vie J'croyais J'voulais, The Life I Thought I Wanted, and the only word that throws me a curve on translation is pinponné.

Je m’ai préparé et me pinponné
Tout ça j’ai fait pour trainailler.

I prepared myself and pinponné me
All this I did for dawdling.

Could it be like pin-pi-po (n.m.) a rhyme game similar to "eeny meey miney mo".

In other words, was he just wasting his time playing games.

JB

My dad would ask my mom that when she was putting her make up on before they would go dancing

"pimponer" is to primp. Maybe the origin of the English "pimped out"?

"Pimponner" or "pomponner" = to primp, dress up with care with a bobble (pompon in French).
This verb is usually used for the dress of the women, rarely for the men, but it's possible

Marc

Marc, you as the expert: where do women wear them then?

Men do, mainly on top, and when to do with music:




BTW Many love and/or hate this instrument, a bit like the story of the Cajun accordion .... ? - Nout

Nout I like your humor !!

Marc.

Nout, the times changed !!

http://www.eurovision.tv/page/multimedia/videos?id=108893

Marc.

La parade des pompons.

Pimponner sounds like it might be related to or the origin of the English word pamper. Same vowel sound for the first syllable.

"Se pimponner" (created in Louisiana) might be a mixture of "se pomponner" and the adjective "pimpant"
http://www.cnrtl.fr/definition/pimpant

And pinponner? is that an official word in France?
(The sound a police car makes?)

No, it is not used in France. But "pomponné" and "pimpant" are so close phonetically and semantically that they might have merged into "pimponner". Well, I suppose so... But the word may be of another origin, or it may simply be an evolution of its pronunciation in Louisiana. The DLF does not say anything about it.

And yes, French fire trucks and police cars go "piiin pooon, piiin pooon", and ambulances go "pin pon pin"

I learned that from reading French "bandes dessinées"

My granny who lived in moreauville & spoke cajun french all the time. She came to live with us in New Orleans as she got up in age. She used that word to describe me all the time because I was always looking in the mirror fixing my hair & makeup (and often made us late going anywhere)! .