Jacques Brel - Next

Original Title: "Au suivant"
Year: 1963

Next...Next
Naked in my towel
Which I used as loincloth
I had the forehead red and the soap in my hand
Next...Next
I was only twenty and we were hundred and twenty
to be the next of the one we followed
Next...Next
I was only twenty and I was losing my innocence
at the strolling brothel that is an army on a campaign
Next...Next
I, I would have liked a little bit more tenderness
Or then a smile or have some time but...
Next...Next
It has not been Waterloo no no but it wasn't Argonne
It was the time one regrets to have missed school
Next...Next

But I swear that hearing that warrant officer of my ass
It's worth having a bash to make armies of impotents
Next...and to the next one
I swear on the head of my first pox
that this voice I hear it all the time since
Next...Next
This voice that smelled of garlic and bad alchohol
It's the voice of nations and it's the voice of blood
Next...Next
And since then every woman when the time comes to succumb
between my too skinny arms seems to whisper to me:
Next...Next
All the followers of the world, should give the hand to each others
This is what I shout at night in my frenzy
Next...Next
And when I am not delirious I come to tell myself
That it's more humiliating to be followed than to follow
Next...Next
One day I will become legless cripple, or nun, or hangman
Well one of those things where I will never be anymore
The next one...The next one

Jacques Bertin - Nazim Hikmet - The Songs of Men

Original Title: "Les Chants des Hommes"
Text: Nazim Hikmet
Music: André Grassi
Year: 1982

The songs of men
are more beautiful than themselves
Heavier with hope
Sadder
More durable
More than men
I have loved their songs
I could live without men
Never without the songs
It happened I was unfaithful
to my lover
Never to the songs I have sung for her
Never either have the songs deceived me
Whatever their language
I have always understood all the songs
Nothing in this world
Of all what I could drink and eat
Of all the countries I have travelled to
Of all what I could touch and understand
Nothing, nothing
Has made me as happy
As the songs
The songs of men

Anne Sylvestre - Do you remember, the Seine ?

Original Title: "T'en souviens-tu, la Seine?"
Year: 1964

Do you remember, the Seine
Do you remember how it comes back to me
Comes back to me the old song
of when we had nothing
of when we had for sole luggages
your two quays for me to walk
your two quays to better dream there?
You were, you were my travels
And the sea, you were my sailing ships
You were for me the ignored landscapes.

I was telling you, the Seine
That we had the eyes of the same color.
When I had sorrow
When I lead my heart astray,
When I found the city too dark,
You were gilding beaches for me
You were putting your silk coat on for me
And for me, who didn't want to believe anymore
And for me, for me not to drown myself
You were making a story out of a sorrow, a joy

They will tell you, the Seine
That I don't have the heart to go for a stroll
or if I go for a walk
it's far from your neighborhood
They will tell you that I neglect you
And though I haven't changed
No, I haven't forgotten about you
My friend of all the tendernesses
I kept your reflections in my eyes
I kept your colors, your caresses to dream about.

Do you remember, the Seine
Do you remember how it comes back to me
Comes back to me the old song
of when we were feeling good?
And if I have seen other landscapes
Your two quays made me dream so much
Wait for me: I will return there
You will be my first big journey
And the harbor where I will put into
Tired of so many other shores, forgotten

Do you remember, the Seine,
Do you remember?

Jacques Bertin - Quay of the Chartrons

Original Title: "Quai des Chartrons"
Year:1982
Related to the neighborhood of the Chartrons in the city of Bordeaux, France.

One would swear that your big disloyal eyes fear something.
Your modesty would throw refutations and confessions.
I'd believe in them like the one who takes it off believes in the rose
From a vase or on your lip: a laugh and your hair.

A radio burried in the vast living room, a sullen jazz
Very dignified and a smoke of blond thin* would play there a little.
Like relegated to the background, her perfume in the smell of leather composes us
The vain decor that we want on us for the desire .

Of course, you will cheat and more while coming closer among the palm leaves
And under the blades of the propeller pulsating the air, you would smell
inside of you and through your fluid clothes and pale.
Swell the brass or melt many calm suns.

Then like the fragrances of evil are lianas or leaves.
Fervent you would crouch skillfully among the laces.
To pick them up but animal as well like human
And of the slowness that we become intoxicated with and I was wanting you.

We will be a sweet summer afternoom like a swan's neck.
The artificial darkness with the wicker blind that we will make
Favourable and that word will make us smile inside.
And then we would love exchanging like at the bal some signs.

While somewhere else close people in the crowd of the cities
Would go every man for himself especially without knowing.
And brushing against us and that tranquil insanity.
For fun, we would love to give ourselves like two beautiful thieves.

*cigarette

Léo Ferré - The spanish ship

Original Title: "Le bateau espagnol"
Year: 1954

I was a big ship sailing down the Garonne
Stuffed with smuggled goods and cramed with Spaniards
People who were looking were saluting the Madonna
That I had attached on the stern by the neck

One day I will go away very far in America
To give tons of gold to the Negros of cotton
I would be the thinking and poetic boat
And Bordeaux will collapse under my large pontoons

How long is the way to America
How long is the way to love
Happiness always come after sorrow
Don't worry my friend, I will be back
As the travels shape the youth
Don't worry my friend, I will grow old

Satisfy with ancient gold, bending under the tropics
One day I come back sails up front
Carrying new wheat with my cudgle hits
Alone better than a sailer I'd rape the wind
Harnesssed with Spaniards, sailing up the Garonne
I will come back home, bursting with glimmers
People would draw aside, saluting the Madonna
On the stern by the neck and of another color

How sweet is the way to Spain
How sweet is the way back
Happiness always come after sorrow
Don't worry my friend, I will come back
As the travels shape the youth
I will tell you my friend: your turn
Your turn.

Philippe Léotard's version (1994):

Jacques Douai's version (1955):

Jacques Bertin's version (1989):

Jacques Bertin - The drowned ones

Original Title: "Les noyés"
Year: 1982

What have we done? What could we do?
The world went by in front of us
Like going to the sea, the river
What have we done? What could we have done?
- O make me undergo that trial
To the destiny I oppose passion
And my twenty years in the course of things.
Twenty years already, I couldn't do anything.

It's true nevertheless I saw you
In the water up to the knees yet
moving forward against the current
While shouts were coming from the bank
"Take care the sand is shifting
Every faith is a drift"
Thousands of silver fishes
were paying a naïve court to you

The river lies, the river goes
It has its deep moves.
Limp lip to the wind of songs
One thinks bathing in it, one drowns in it
The drowned one thinks, going in the waters,
he is ruling the current, the world
Carry the man and the man learns
to be the wreck of time

The long stay in the water
ate his eyes, made a face,
You are already not as beautiful anymore
You are old. Are we old?
We believed in hope
We were going huge
Like to the beautiful destiny
Where were shining unthought suns

Suns, farewell! We are old
We are alike to our folks
Exhausted, defeated, we are done
What could have we done? What have we done?
Let's remember while going in the waters
with our eaten faces
That we will rule over the world
Lenient as drowned men.

Suns and you my hopes
Thank you for that slow procession
from the furthest of my childhood
That is taking me away toward the ocean
Those who remained on the bank
Dead trees motionless to the wind
Creaking in the eternities
Are they seeing the blue sky of the drowned?

That madness that frees us!

Graeme Allwright - Leonard Cohen - Stranger Song

French Title: "L'étranger"
Text: Leonard Cohen
Year: 1975
Graeme Allwright adapted the song of Leonard Cohen: Stranger Song (1967).
The lyrics are very close.

slightly modified translation from : http://les-paroles-de-chansons.com/chanson/montrer/636508/graeme-allwright/paroles-et-traduction-de-chanson-ltranger/

All the men you have known
Told you they did not want anymore
To give the cards, caught like in a trap.
It's hard to hold back the hand
Of a man who seeks further
And who wants to reach the sky to open up
And who wants to reach the sky to open up

Then picking up the cards
That stayed there on the table
You know he left you very little,
not even his laugh
Like all players he sought
The card that is so delusional
That he will never need another anymore
That he will never need another anymore

One day, leaning out of your window
He will tell you he wants to be reborn
To the world that your tenderness is hiding to him
And taking from his wallet
An old train schedule, he says:
I warned you: I am a stranger
I warned you: I am a stranger

Now another stranger
Seems to want you to ignore his dreams
As though they were the burden of someone else
You have seen this man already
Giving the cards with his golden arm
But now you see his hand is frozen
Yes now you see his hand is frozen

But you do not like to look at
Another tired man
lay down all his cards like a defeat.
While he is dreaming himself to sleep
In the shadow you see like a smoke
A road that goes up behind his head
A road that goes up behind his head

You tell him to come in and to sit
And when you turn around you see
That your bedroom door remains open.
And when you take his hand, he says:
Do not be afraid my tender friend
This is not me anymore, oh my love, the stranger
This is not me anymore, oh my love, the stranger

I waited always certain
To see you again between the trains
Soon another one will have to be boarded
Oh I never had you know
any secret plan
Nor anyone to drive me
And you wonder what he is looking to say
Yes you wonder what he means

Down the riverside tomorrow
I'll wait for you if you don't mind
There, near the bridge they are building
Then leaves the quay for a sleeper
You know he seeks another shelter
That he never has been a stranger
That he never has been a stranger

And you say: okay, at the bridge or elsewhere, I will come

Then picking up the cards
that stayed there on the table
You know that he left you very little
not even his laugh
Like all players he sought
The card that is so delusional
That he will never need another
That he will never need another

One day, leaning out of your window
He will tell you he wants to be reborn
To the world that your tenderness is hiding to him
And taking from his wallet
An old train schedule, he says:
I warned you: I am a stranger
I warned you: I am a stranger ...

Dominique A - For the skin

Original Title : "Pour la peau"
Year: 2001

As you managed to wait.
The way you spoke to her
And as she resisted you
She wanted to defend herself
And it was almost beautiful
To see you both, almost beautiful
Your infinite patience
Her "no", "yes", "not here.
One day it happened
She wanted in your room
And everything went fine
And everything was very tender
But after, as always
It made you feel all peculiar
She washed herself quickly
You knew well how it's but...

What wouldn't you do for the skin?
What wouldn't you do for the skin?

Your blood went hot at once
You feel it run
Carry you anywhere
Make you do a bit of everything, unbridled
There, you are in your bed
And the girl is pretty
And after, you talk
And you say "I have someone";
You sleep under other sheets
For a long time already
That's why you are here
With your blood that sleeps
Under your hands, under your skin;
You blood peaceful finally
Peaceful, him at least

What wouldn't you do for the skin?
What wouldn't you do for the skin?