Jacques Brel - I am a summer evening

Jacques Brel - Je suis un soir d'été
Original Title: "Je suis un soir d'été"
Year: 1968

And the sub-prefecture
Celebrates the sub-prefect's wife
Under the faceted chandelier
Orange squashes are raining
And lukewarm champagnes
And icy remarks
Of glum females
of those who are made employees of the state

I am a summer evening

At the open windows
The diners of the families
Push back their plates
And say that it's hot
The men throw belches
of Teutonic knights
The tablecloths fall into crumbs
over the balconies

I am a summer evening

At the blurred terraces
A few damp drinkers
Talk of nags
And of old perfidious women
It's the time when the suspenders
Hold the present
of the spilled passers-by
And of the alcoholised ones.

I am a summer evening

Heavy lover women
With smell of kitchen
Wander their bosoms
On the sides of the Meuse
They are missing a soldier
For summer to feast
And climbs somehow
To the top of their stockings²

I am a summer evening

At the fountains the old men
bedecked with references
Turn back their childhood
with small rainy steps
They laugh of a whole tooth
To bite into the silence
Around the girls who dance
To the death of a spring

I am a summer evening

Heat is vertebrating
It rivers drunkenness's
Summer has its big masses
And the night celebrates them
The city to the four winds
Twinkles the remorse,
Useless and passing,
Of not being an harbour.

I am a summer evening

²In French "Low" and "Stockings" are said the exact same way (to the top of their lows)