Jean Ferrat - Aragon - I hear, I hear

Original title: "J'entends J'entends"
Text: Louis Aragon

Year: 1961

I have seen so many people who went away
They were only asking for fire
They were content with so little
They had so little anger

I hear their steps, I hear their voices
Which tell banal things
Like one could read in the newspapers
Like one could tell in the evening at home

What is being done of you men and women
Oh tender stone, worn out early
And your broken appearances
Looking at you tears my soul off

Things go like they go
Time to time earth shakes
Misfortune ressembles to misfortune
It's deep, deep, deep

You would like to believe in the blue sky
I know that feeling
I believe in it myself sometimes
Like the lark does in the mirror

I believe in it sometimes, I confess
Up to not believing my own ears
Ah, I am indeed your equal
Ah, I am indeed the same as you

As you, like the grains of sand
Like the blood always shed
Like the fingers always hurt
Ah, I am indeed your fellow man

I'd have liked so much to help you
You who seem to be other myselves
But the words that I sow to the black wind
Who knows if you hear them

Everything is getting lost and nothing moves you
Nor my words nor my hands
And you go on your way
Without knowing what my mouth says

Your hell is nevertheless mine
We live under the same rule
And when you bleed, I bleed
And I die in your same bonds

What time is it, how is the weather
however I'd have liked so much
to win for you, losing for me
Having been useful maybe

It's a modest and crazy dream
It'd have been better to keep it quiet
You will bury me with it
Like a star at the bottom of a hole

Cora Vaucaire's version:


All poems written by Louis Aragon