Léo Ferré - Aragon - You won't come back from it

Original Title: "Tu n'en reviendras pas"
Text: Louis Aragon (1956)
Year: 1959

You won't come back you from it you who ran after the girls
Young man who I have seen the heart beating exposed
When I teared your shirt and neither you
You won't come back from it old Manille player

whom a shell cut in two sideways
For once he had a sensational game
And you the tatooed, the former legionnaire
You will survive a long time without face, without eyes

We leave God knows to where, it's of a bad dream
We will glide along the line of fire
Somewhere it's starting to not be a game anymore
The good men there are waiting for replacements

Roll in the distance, roll train of the last glows
The soldiers asleep that your dance shakes
Let the forehead lean and bend their neck
It smells of tobocco breath and sweat

How to look at you without seeing your fates
Bethroted to the earth and promised to pains
The night-light gives you the color of tears
You vaguely move your condemned legs

Already the stone thinks where your name is written
Already you are no more than a golden word on our squares
Already the memory of your love fades away
Already you only exist for having perished

Barbara's version:


Catherine Sauvage's version:


All poems written by Louis Aragon