Friday, August 29, 2014

Serge Reggiani - The absence


Original Title: "L'absence"

Year: 1971
It's a beating shutter
It's a a light tear
On the sheet where recently
You laid your arm
While downstairs
The street talks alone
Someone is selling mandarins
A marine blue lady
Takes her goddaughter for a walk
The absence, here it is

The absence
Of a child, of a love
The absence is the same
Once we have said "I love you"
One day...
The silence is the same

It's a falling night
It's a poetry as well
Where the doves were passing
One night of jealousy
A book is open
You touched that page
You cracked that glass
When you got back from a long trip
The luggages are remaining
The absence, here it is

The absence
Of a child, of a love
The absence is the same
Once we have said "I love you"
One day...
The silence is the same

It's a beating shutter
It's, on a calendar, the cross
Of an old date
Where we were saying "you" to one another
The vases are empty
Where we would have put the bouquets
And the miror is getting wrinkles
Where the past is on the lookout
I hear the noise of a footstep
The absence, here it is

The absence
Of a child, of a love
The absence is the same
Once we have said "I love you"
One day...
The silence is the same

Thursday, August 28, 2014

Léo Ferré - Verlaine - I still see you


Original Title: "Je vous vois encore"
Text: Paul Verlaine
Year: 1964

I still see you! In a summer dress
white and yellow with curtain's flowers.
But you didn't have anymore the wet cheerfulness
Of the most delirious of our short futures.

The small bride and the elder girl
Had reappeared with the clothes
And it was already our fate
That looked at me under your veil

Be forgiven! And it's the reason why,
I keep, alas! with some pride,
In my memory, which cuddled you,
the side lightning that flew from your eye.

Slightly different version:

Je vous vois encore/ leo ferre paul verlaine

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Jacques Bertin - Mallarmé - Nautical breeze


Original Title: "Brise Marine"
Year: 1980
Text: Stéphane Mallarmé

The flesh is sad, alas! and I have read all the books.
To flee! Over there, to flee! I feel that some birds are drunk
of being among the unknown foam and the skies!
Nothing, nor the old gardens reflected by the eyes
Will hold that heart that is getting drenched in the sea
Oh nights! Nor the deserted brightness of my lamp
On the empty paper that whiteness defends
And nor the young woman breast-feeding her child.

I will leave! Steamer swinging your masts,
Set sails for an exotic nature!
A boredom, sorry by the cruel hopes,
Still believes into the supreme farewell of the handkerchiefs!
And, maybe, the masts, inviting the thunderstorms
Are of those that a wind tilts over the wreckings
Lost, without mast, without mast, nor fertile islets...
But, Oh my heart, hear the songs of the sailors

Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Marc & André - At the sign of the Heartless Girl


Original Title: "A l'enseigne de la fille sans coeur"
Text: Jean Villard

Year: 1946
The sky/evening is blue, the open sea wind
digs the sea quite prettily
Toward the harbor climbing to the attack
Galloping its white squadrons
It's an harbor all at the edge of the world
whose streets open on the infinite
But from there as the Earth is round
one can not see the United States.

Noone cares, there is happiness
There is a pub "At Rita the blond"
Noone cares, there is happiness
At the sign of the Heartless Girl!
The accordion plays in major
The refrains of this vast world
There is Rita and her kiss curls
At the sign of the Heartless Girl!

In that small pub, that's where she reigns
One sees her golden mane blaze
Her mouth is like a fruit that bleeds
But people say that her heart is dead
And yet the guys are there, all funny:
The little ones, the tough ones, the hefty fellows
who enter swaying their shoulders
There are some who came from Dakar.

There are some from Antwerp, some from Honfleur
Travelling around sometimes up to the poles
They look at her, it's all their happiness,
But not a single one knows her favors
The accordion plays in major
All the tunes: the sad ones, the funny ones
There is the beautiful blong, that blossoming rose
At the sign of the Heartless Girl!

They loved her even more as she was tough
More her gaze was cruel
Set a hole in their belt
It was hell, it was heaven.
A smile and it was sunday
The boys said: "Drink with us"
They trembled in front of her white hand
pouring rhum and sweet wine.

Beer, coffee, good wines and liquors.
The owner rolled up his sleeves
The money flowed, it was a pleasure
At the sign of the Heartless Girl!
The accordion plays in major
The opening of "The White Lady"
And some guys who gamble their happiness
At the sign of the Heartless Girl!

The owner knew the tune:
He liked the sound of the crowns
He told his only daughter:
"Flee away from love, it's time lost!"
But one evening, the sea was raging
We saw one stranger enter
with beautiful azure eyes without clouds
That's when everything changed

He looked at the heartless heart
She was like a thunder sky
Someone said: "There is trouble"
We could hear the hearts beat
The accordion plays in minor
A song "In the wild wind"
There is a girl, the face covered with tears
At the sign of the Heartless Girl!

He said: "It's you, my divine!"
She answered: "I am yours"
She cried against his chest
He hold her between his arms
The others then full of melancholy
Left with a sigh
The wind sang on the Atlantic Ocean
For that heart that just opened itself

They went off toward their big happiness
The owner had to close the shop
He has been seen drinking all of his liquors
At the sign of the Heartless Girl!
Then the State, that monopolizer,
that never had the sense of comical
Installed the tax collector ofice
At the sign of the Heartless Girl!

Edith Piaf's version (1952):

Barbara's version:

Friday, August 22, 2014

Jacques Bertin - Little sunset


Original Title: "Petit coucher"

Year: 1980
A nice reverse, I park my vocation against the sidewalk.
The door bangs with a good soothing noise.
The faith chips a little inevitably, in the end, in places
But we still start up first time even when it's cold.
A few steps in the street. I sign at the bottom of the sweetness of things
I make my muses piss, I converse with pollens.
Happy or unhappy, sad or gay, but does it really matter?
I expect news from myself. I do not grow impatient.

It's crazy how cushy we are when we are alone
And tranquil when others aren't there.

I plunge in the apartment from which I overhang the world.
I shut myself up in my compass. I head for myself.
Everything at its place, I come, I go, I reign, I roam.
I take care of the passing time and I set its thermostat.
Naked more or less, pursuing my works, without haste about myself
And my connections with hedonism and with myself
I am so well, so naked and so myself
I am missing one verse to finish this rhyme. It does not make me lose my head.

It's crazy how cushy we are when we are alone
And tranquil when others aren't there.

I settle my sheets and to bed, without regrets, without hate, without anyone.
I think about what healthy people, you should think so, do not think about.
I pull at the opium pipe delivered by God very secretly
To all those who make the request And without any charge.
And then a bit like every evening, I tell myself my role
In the Little Big Horn case and the one of the Blue Train
In passing, I still write one or two verses very beautiful, very pious
Like: "In how many lives, have you lived, Elisabeth"

It's crazy how cushy we are when we are alone
And tranquil when others aren't there.

What is great above all is that Elisabeth does not answer me
She is elsewhere, she is already sleeping without a doubt, gloomy and beautiful
And complaining of the lack of tenderness in someone else's arms
Not loved like she should be by someone else
What is great above all is that Elisabeth does not answer me
She is elsewhere, she is already sleeping without a doubt, gloomy and beautiful
And complaining of the lack of tenderness in someone else's arms
Me, holding my scepter in my hand, I fall asleep in my crown

It's crazy how cushy we are when we are alone
And tranquil when others aren't there.

Thursday, August 21, 2014

Jacques Bertin - Here is the sun again


Original Title: "Revoilà le soleil"
Year: 1968
Here is the sun again
Nothing matters anymore.
Ran too much, searched too much
For the youth at the rays.
I'm twenty years old this morning.
Standing up like a sun
A weather of big winter
I blow on my fingers.

The weather is never nice
like at our wakening
The face that burns us
And the hunger that bites us.
I bury my thoughts
In pots the whole winter
Blossom who wants
In the spring, in the spring
But I live, but I go
It's cold, it's bright
All you have to do is to be in love
Of everything, of whatever.

The weather is never nice
like at our wakening
And I do not know how to bite
And I cut my teeth.
Up to my own body
Across my road
That steps back and smiles
And the girls are pretty
And then I make bubbles
And I speak alone
Between sorrow and dawn
Between living and knowing.

The weather is never nice
like at our wakening
Standing oneself against the wind
Talk nonsense.
How we lacked humor
Between our philosopher
Our seated prophets
And our apothecaries.
I eat with my fingers
I say "blue", I say "green"
My insolent gaze
The strength of the snow

The weather is never nice
like at our wakening
And laugh about all this
The pleasure of the sun.
Nothing matters anymore
But the sound of my steps
The stone of the churches
The girls' legs
And singing that song
That made us want
To live, to live.

Monday, August 11, 2014

Jean Ferrat - Aragon - It's an understatement to say that I love you


Original Title: "C'est si peu dire que je t'aime"
Text: Louis Aragon

Year: 1965
Like a torn cloth
We live together separated
In my arms I hold you absent.
And the wound meant to last
Is it required to feel it so deep
When the sky is limited to us?
It's an understatement to say that I love you

This existence is a farewell
And we both only have eyes
For the light turning down.
Put on seven league boots
While saying ourselves that there is no hurry
That's what it means to be old.
It's an understatement to say that I love you

It is as if never, ever
I had told you that I loved you
If I was worried to be surprised by
The night on my throat that lays
Her gloved fingers of sovereign
When never again it is the month of May
It's an understatement to say that I love you

When things are nothing more
than a remembrance of their thrill.
An echo of dead music.
The pain of the sound remains
which the more it fades out the stronger it becomes
It's not much, some words for the song.
It's an understatement to say that I love you
And I would only have said that I love you

All poems written by Louis Aragon

Monday, August 4, 2014

Jean Ferrat - Aragon - I arrive where I am a stranger


Original Title: "J'arrive où je suis étranger"
Text: Louis Aragon
Year: 1994
Nothing is as precarious as living
Nothing is as passing as being
For frost, it's a bit like melting
And for the wind like being light
I arrive where I am a stranger

One day you pass the border
Where do you come from, but where are you going?
What matters tomorrow and what matters yesterday
The heart changes with the thistle
Everything is without rhyme or forgiveness

Brush your finger there on your temple
Touch childhood with your eyes
Better leave the lights low
The longer night suits us better
It is the bright day that is getting old

The trees are beautiful in autumn
But the child what has he become
I look at myself and I wonder
Of this unknown traveler
Of his face and his bare feet

Gradually you become silence
But not fast enough though
To not feel your dissimilarity
And on the yourself of yesteryear
Fall the dust of time

It takes a long time to age afterall
Causes the sand to leak through our fingers
It's like a cold water rising
It is like a shame that grows
A leather to shout for auction that we trim

It takes a long time to be a man, a thing
It takes a long time to give up everything
And do you feel the metamorphosis
That are happening inside of us
Making our knees slowly bend

Oh bitter sea, Oh deep sea
What is the time of your tides
How many years-seconds are required
For man to abjure man
Why, why those airs and graces

Nothing is as precarious as living
Nothing is as passing as being
For frost, it's a bit like melting
And for the wind like being light
I arrive where I am a stranger

All poems written by Louis Aragon

Saturday, August 2, 2014

Jacques Brel - Jaurès


Translated for the 100th year of the assassination of Jean Jaurès.

Year: 1977
They were worn up at fifteen years old
They were finishing while beginning
The twelve months were named december
What kind of life did our grand parents have?
Between the absinth and the high masses
They were old before being,
Fifteen hours a day, the body on a leash,
Leaves to the face an ash like complexion.
Yes our Sir, yes our kind Master

Why did they kill Jaurès?
Why did they kill Jaurès?

One can not say they were slaves
But to say that they have lived
When you start defeated like that
It's hard to come out of the enclave
And though hope was florishing
In the dreams which were going up to the eyes
Of the few who were refusing
to crawl until the old age
Yes our kind Master, yes our Sir

Why did they kill Jaurès?
Why did they kill Jaurès?

If by misfortune they survived
It was to go to war
It was to end up at war
Under the orders of some swordsman
Who was demanding half-heartedly
That they go open in the field of horror
Their twenties which didn't have the chance to be born
And they died in full fear
All miserable, yes our kind Master
Covered with field horsetails, yes our Sir.
Ask yourself pretty youth,
The time of the shadow of a memory,
The time of the blow of a sigh,

Why did they kill Jaurès?
Why did they kill Jaurès?

Friday, August 1, 2014

Edith Piaf & Charles Dumont - The lovers...


Original Title: "Les amants"
Year: 1962
When the lovers will hear
This song
It's certain, my beauty,
It's certain
That they will cry...

They will listen to
The love words
That you were saying.
They will hear
Your love voice
When you loved me.
When you believed you loved me
That I loved you, that we were loving one another

When the lovers will hear
this song
It's certain, my beauty, (I love you so much)
It's certain (we love each other so much)
that they will cry... (...way more than before)

I still hear...I hear your laugh
When sometimes I was telling you:
"If one day...
...you did not love me anymore
If one day...
...we did not love one another anymore."
You answered: "It's impossible!"
And you laughed, you laughed.
Well, you see, you should not have laughed.

When the lovers will hear
This song
It's certain, my beauty, (I love you less)
It's certain (you love me less)
That they will cry...(we love each others less)

They will listen to
The love words
That you were saying.
They will hear
Your love voice
When you loved me.
When you believed you loved me
That I loved you, that we were loving one another

When the lovers will hear
This song
It's certain, my beauty, (I do not love you anymore)
It's certain (You do not love me anymore)
That they will cry...(We do not love each other anymore)

Léo Ferré - You never say anything

Original Title: " Tu ne dis jamais rien " Year: 1971 I see the world a bit like one sees the unbelievable This what the unbeli...