It's the most beautiful night
Since the beginning of times
It's Christmas night
The night of a poor kid
Of Jesus, son of God
Who came down on earth
So that the anxious hearts
are not lonely anymore
So that the peace of the world
Arrives and that down here
Hope, charity
Comes to guide our steps
Oh joy of Bethleem
Thank you for your light
Which changes in one day
The face of the earth
Christmas! Christmas!
Jesus is born!
It's the most beautiful night of the year
Christmas! Christmas! Christmas! Christmas!
Jesus is eternal!
Worker for the Lord
Among the workers
Only leaving your work
To go pray
My God of Nazareth
With a tranquil childhood
Jesus you are going to grow up
Humble, sweet and docile.
The house of your Father
is the temple of God
It's there that you promise
The Kingdom of Heaven
To those who will follow you
And that finally you forgive
While dieing on the Cross
All the sins of men.
Christmas! Christmas!
Jesus is born!
It's the most beautiful night of the year
Christmas! Christmas! Christmas! Christmas!
Jesus is eternal!
I am not God's fool anymore
High verb and hands in the pockets
I lost track of the good Lord
One morning behind the post office
Life does not have that look of a woman
And her wide open blouse
And her tenderness and her warmth
And all my love is in a bad way
I am now without star
Sensitive to the cold in my coat of pride
Beating the air of a boastful verb
And I mend my ankle socks
Life does not have that chest anymore
The breasts where I was running bare feet
The rump where my twenty years old were rolling
And that belly heavy and tranquil
It does not have that face so delicate
Those eyes of a curly haired princess
With that endless song to the lips
Delicate and sweet and strong and forceful
I have at the bottom of myself a dead God
Who still dreams and smiles
I won't do the pretty heart
Under the windows of life
And yet I still sing
My song of love and pride
Against the reason of the toads
One has to die alive all the same
And here is life which comes back
With its loving gait
With my blood rising inside of me
Like after a very long journey
The eyes, the evening and sweetness
The summer of that hair we fade
The sand with its powerful body
You will make me die of love
La la la.
Original Title: "La femme qui est dans mon lit"
Year: 1967
If you meet her, weirdly dressed
Dragging in the gutter an heel taken off
And the head and the eye low like a wounded pigeon
Sirs do not spit swearwords nor filth
To the painted face of that poor impur one
Who goddess Famine has one evening of winter
Forced to lift her petticoats in open air
That Bohemia is my good, my wealth
My pearl, my jewel, my queen
My Duchess
The woman who is in my bed, isn't twenty years old for a long time
The eyes rung by years, by loves day-to-day
The mouth worn out by kisses too often and too badly given
The bleak complexion despite the blusher more pale than a moon's spot
The woman who is in my bed, isn't twenty years old for a long time
The breasts so heavy of too much love do not wear the name of baits
The body weary, too caressed, too often, but badly loved
The back stooped seems to carry memories she had to run away from
The woman who is in my bed, isn't twenty years old for a long time
Don't laugh, don't touch her, keep your tears and your sarcasms
When night reunites us, her body, her hands offer themselves to mine
And its her heart covered with tears and wounds which reassures me.
Original Title: "La grande marée"
Text: Bernard Lavilliers
Year: 1981 (Vanderlove's version), 1975
An idol with feet of clay watches over the border
Kids with fragile hands play with the dirt
The widows with long feverish fingers distil the tea
An old man with tranquil eyes gets out of the smoke
It's the big tide, the big tide, the big tide
It's the big tide, the big tide, the big tide
A king paraylised by loneliness on his derisory throne
A coffee, a clock, a piece of sidewalk
A wake up sinister and funny on the shoulder of a worker
Who is going at the end of the mole, toward eternity
It's the big tide, the big tide, the big tide
It's the big tide, the big tide, the big tide
The kids playing under the shadow of the truncheons
The weather that is, six months of prison in Maniac
A star has fallen in my guitar
If I was a believer, it'd be a gift from the sky
It's the big tide, the big tide, the big tide
It's the big tide, the big tide, the big tide
The streets have no nooks anymore, no more dead angles
It eases the balance of powers
There are no lovers anymore, no public benches anymore
We are forever tanned
Our vocabulary is reduced to fifty words
We plug our sexes in the local supply
And our spermatozoids are calibrated and placed in banks
They serve as currency to the eunuchs who govern us
Our society of abundance is making marvels, there is only one class left
Though when reflecting upon it there is another one
But we are advised against thinking
We never make love anymore, except once in a while
With the wardens who watches over us
Mine is frigid.
It's the big tide, the big tide, the big tide
It's the big tide, the big tide, the big tide
Original Title: "Ils s'allongent côte à côte"
Year: 1977
They lie down side by side,
Head turned toward the sky
Head turned toward the sky
Like they do for thirty years
Maybe they are already a little in the sky
Because of the peace surrounding them
As if they were in a small boat
Hear turned toward the sky
Around the house, the Virginia creeper
That he had planted the first day
Carries them and protects them
Or it's the night which protects them
and which carries them
And it's as if the evening
And every evening
They were going away
Toward God maybe
Who is like some sort of estuary
More luminous than the night in the night.
Misogyny aside, the wise man was right
There are the annoying ones, you can find plenty of them
They are pressing in a crowd.
There are the damned nuissances, a bit more refined
And then clearly the pick of the bunch
There are the buggeresses.
Mine, alone, bids higher over them all
She comes under the three categories at the same time
Genuine prodigy
Annoying, nuisance and buggeress as well
She passes, she goes past, she surpasses everything
She pisses me off, I'm telling you
My God, forgive me for those quite bitter words
She pisses me off, she pisses me off, she pisses me off,
She abuses, she oversteps the mark
She gets on my nerves and I regret my pretty loves with
The little children of Mary the bishop whispered to me
She pisses me off, I'm telling you
She pisses me off, she pisses me off,
And forces me to clean my nails before to confirm her ass
And yet, it's not callipygian
And charity only pushes my resigned hand
Toward that ass, killjoy, conical, sullen
She pisses me off, I'm telling you
She pisses me off, she pisses me off, I repeat it and when
She pats my belly, she keeps her gloves
And that offends me
Aside that it denotes of a serious lack of tact
It does not favour contact that much
She pisses me off, I'm telling you
She pisses me off, she pisses me off, when I fall on my knees
For some kind of devotions which are typically local
And which gives vertigo
Thinking it is time to sing the Creed
She opens wide her missal on my back
She gets on my nerves, I tell you
She pisses me off, she pisses me off, even during fornication
She gets bored stiff, she gets bored stiff with ostentation
She gets bored stiff, I tell you
Instead of shouting: "More! Come on! Come on!"
She declaims some Claudel, some Claudel that's what I said
Well then it freezes me!
She pisses me off, she pisses me off, I admit that that Claudel
is a man of genius, an immortal poet,
I recognise his prestige
But that one gets from his pious work
An aphrodisiac, no, that's clear utopia.
She pisses me off, I'm telling you
She pisses me off, I'm telling you
In Besançon that year,
A thousand men and women stood up.
Do we do verses with immediate news?
Poet, is it your role to testify for the birthing fire?
Can one write songs on those women
Who put themselves on Sunday² for eight months because it had to be shown
That we were respectable people
And that the strike, it's not carelessness it's strictness
Thus you make verses with the dignity of others
Poet, from your bedroom among your books
Is it fit to salute the working class
From far, when maybe, your verses, she would not understand anything to them?
You'll have to resign yourself to it
The spark it is not me
I go from town to town
I carry the fire, I am the blood
Oh young women, who came down on Besançon
That year, toward the fifteen August while carrying like a sacrifice
Your clamors because it was the first time and you were a big scared
I stay on the edge of you, shy, not daring to do anything
Can one do verses with the solemnity of your gestures and your honor?
You stood up
Suddenly you became the hope of the world
The hope of the world, you, small clothes-conscious ladies and ordinary,
without passion
The first day, one of you said "The strike will be long
It's with the feet in the snow that we'll end"
It's thus easy to make verses about courage and about fear
One makes verses with hope, with life
With nails clinging to the reality
With words which have been whispered to me that winter
In Besançon because the wind blows in the back of the poet
And riddles him with words which does not belong to him
² A saying to say that they weren't pay/took a pay leave.
Another version:
Have pity, have pity of me
At least, please, my friends
In grave I lie down, not under holy nor may
In that exile to which I am sent
By Fortune, like it was allowed by God
Girls liking young people and new
Dancers, jumpers, making the calf's foot²
Vivacious like javelins, sharp like stings
Ringing throat clear like bells³
Would you leave him there, the poor Villon?
Cantors singing at leisure, without law,
Gallants laughing, pleasing in facts and words,
Itinerant merchant going frank with fake gold, of alloy,
People of spirit, a little scatterbrain,
Resurrect too much because he dies in the meanwhile
Maker of lays, of motets and rondeaux,
When dead will be, you will make him chaudeaux*
Where he lays down, no lightning nor whirlwind enters
With thick walls his bandages have been made
Would you leave him there, the poor Villon?
Come to see him in that pitiful equipage
Noble men, free of quarter and tenth**,
Who hold nothing of Emperor nor King
But only of God of Paradise
To go without food he needs on Sundays and Tuesdays
Whose teeth has longer than rake
After dry bread, not after cakes
In his bowels pours water gushing out
Deep in ground, table has not nor trestles
Named princes, old, striplings,
Obtain me pardon and royal seals.
And carry me up in some basket
As the pigs do, to one another
Because, where one brays, they run away in a heap
Would you leave him there, the poor Villon?
²Lifting the leg of a comical way when dancing
³Cascaveaux could be the bells shaken to announce plague epidemics
*drink made of pouring warm milk over an egg
**apparently referring to tax and tithe
There are some girls like that
Who have the heart like an island
No need to be beautiful, don't dress in Sunday's clothes
Step forward into the sea, lie down on your back
Let yourself drift placid and float on your back
Shout "I am the drunken boat" of Arthur Rimbaud
I am not an happy person, life is a problem to me
Happiness is so far away, I have looked so much for it
I become an orphan if noone loves me
And a girl like that will come to fish you out
There are some girls like that
Who have the heart like an island
With some soft beaches
A semblance of rocks
To make everyone believe
That it's difficult
That it's difficult
To approach them
At her place a woodfire as soon as September ends
Sunshine in Spring and shadow in Summer
You'll be like a King in your robe
Which many others undoubtly wore before you
You'll be pampered without having anything to say
Nothing but love words where her first name sings
You'll have to prove her how much you desire her
And a girl like that will never say no.
There are some girls like that
Who have the heart like an island
With some soft beaches
A semblance of rocks
To make everyone believe
That it's difficult
That it's difficult
To approach them
That daily love and of every second
Will give you the idea that there must exist
Some girls to love at every corner of the world
Then you'll go away enamoured of freedom
Then another guy will come to live with her
But for how long? Maybe for ever
With every lover the hope is new
And a girl like that dreams of a single love.
There are some girls like that
Who have the heart like an island
With some soft beaches
A semblance of rocks
To make everyone believe
That it's difficult
That it's difficult
To approach them
Original Title: "La pionne du lycée des filles"
Year: 1991
The little hat with a veil
The black suit and the white gloves
A brooch that shines, a violet
The supervisor of the high school for girls
She is crazy for a while, a while
She is crazy indeed, she runs in the street
Cleaving through groups for fifty years
With the look of not seeing anything, covered head, bare head.
She rushes towards climaxes, towards returns, and her twenties
At the highschool, year nineteen hundred thirty eight, the look of a prince
A science graduate, gold-rimmed spectacles and blue eyes,
Has arrived, a match for the whole province.
All those girls of canons and egg merchants
The city is grey and the rain tells its breviary every day
As soon as seven o'clock rings we curl up in its walls
We change the flowers in the vases, we marry our daughter, we spare the light
We change nothing, the money oozes, the students have a tough gaze
In her bedroom over the canal, he was reading her Apollinaire for the other silence
And the music in his eyes, the pretty pupil of war from Montfort-over-Meu
Then, in september, it was the end of the holidays
He was so well in the blue uniform
Thifty years ago those days, the time passes only for those who count
He jumped over Norway, in may. Only mad love defies the time
The poet said "Why don't I have...." and "Remember that I am waiting for you"
As long as this city lasts, lasts life, I wait for you
The little hat with a veil
The black suit and the white gloves
A brooch that shines, a violet
The supervisor of the high school for girls
She is crazy for a while, a while
Go in your despise of mankind, of the reasonable people
Black and blue flower, dead-living flower which casts itself in the azures
"The streets are narrowing" He said, the drift of the continents is unavoidable
You spray rains of stars over the walls
The little hat with a veil
The black suit and the white gloves
A brooch that shines, a violet
The supervisor of the high school for girls
She is crazy for a while, a while
I'd have liked my beauty
To write you a song
On this melody
Met one night
I'd have liked my beauty
Just at the Alençon lace
To write you a long poem
To write you a long I love you
I'd have told you "love"
I'd have told you "always"
But of a thousand ways
But through a thousand detours
I'd have told you "Let's leave"
I'd have told you "Let's burn
Let's burn from day to day
From season to season"
But the time for the idea
To lit up on the paper
The time to take a quillpen
The time to sharpen it
But the time to tell myself
How am I going to write it
And the time arrived
When you did not love me anymore
This is an extract of the great will of Villon (XVth Century).
Original Title: "Pauvre je suis"
Year: 1974
In the thirtieh year of my age
That all my shames I'd have drunk
Nor completely crazy, nor completely wise
In spite of many sorrows I had
Which I all received
Under the hand of Thibaut d'Aussigny...
If Bishop he is, lording the streets,
That he is mine I deny him!
My lord he is not, nor my bishop
Under him nothing holds if not lieing fallow
Faith owes him no tribute
I am not his serf nor his doe
Fed with a small loaf
and of cold water a whole summer
Broad or narrow, a lot has been meagre to me
Let God be to him like he was to me.
Poor I am since my youth
Of poor and humble origin
My father never had big wealth
Nor his grandfather named Horace
Poverty follows and tracks us
On the tombs of my ancesters
The souls as soon as they embrace God
Are seen on them no crowns or scepters
And if someone wants to reprimand me
And say that I curse him
Not done, if one can well understand
In no way do I speak ill of him
Here is all the bad that I have to say:
If he has been mercifull to me
Jesus, the king of paradise
Let him be alike to the soul and body!
If he has been tough and cruel to me
Much more than here is told
I want that the eternal God
Is to him then alike to that account
And if the church tells us and relates
That we should pray for our enemies
I would tell you: "I am wrong and ashamed
Whatever he did to, commited it to God"
Poor I am since my youth
Of poor and humble origin
My father never had big wealth
Nor his grandfather named Horace
Poverty follows and tracks us
On the tombs of my ancesters
The souls as soon as they embrace God
Are seen on them no crowns or scepters
Over poverty bemoaning
Many times the heart tells me:
"Man, do not be so upset
And do not exert such pain,
If you do not have as much heart as Jack:
Better to live under big clog
Poor, than having been lord
And rot under rich tomb!"
If I am not, well considered,
Son of angel wearing tiara
of Stars nor stagger others.
My father is dead, God have his soul!
As to the body, it lies under the blade
I understand that my mother will die
And she knows it well the poor woman,
And the son will not resurect.
Poor I am since my youth
Of poor and humble origin
My father never had big wealth
Nor his grandfather named Horace
Poverty follows and tracks us
On the tombs of my ancesters
The souls as soon as they embrace God
Are seen on them no crowns or scepters
I know that poors and richs,
Wise and mad, priests and ugly ones,
Nobles, vilains, big and meager,
Small and tall, and beautiful and ugly,
Ladies with rolled up short capes,
Of any condition,
Wearing attires and rolls,
Death grabs without exception.
Death make them shudder and go pale,
The nose to curve, the veins to stretch,
The neck to swell, the flesh to go soft,
Joints and nerves to grow and spread.
Feminine body, which is so tender,
Polished, silky, so precious
Will you have to wait for those ills?
Yes, or all alive go to heavens.
Poor I am since my youth
Of poor and humble origin
My father never had big wealth
Nor his grandfather named Horace
Poverty follows and tracks us
On the tombs of my ancesters
The souls as soon as they embrace God
Are seen on them no crowns or scepters
Original title: "Lorsque s'en vient le soir"
Text: Louis Aragon
Year: 1994
When comes the evening which turns through the door
To live suddenly has the depth of a wheat field
I find you back, love, with my trembled hands
Which make the tender soil between the dead leaves
And we get rid of our stolen clothes
Nothing calmed those hands that I have to know you
Keeping from the first evening that turmoil of touching you
I find you back, love, sought for a long time
As if suddenly a window were to open
And if you gave up to always hide yourself
I am forever your scene and your theatre
Where the curtain of loving takes off anywhere
The star snows in me its eternal month of August
Nothing calmed that heart to beat when seeing you
It ends up hurting me and nothing is as sweet to me
Yet you are still to me the furtive passer-by
Who we hold back miraculously at the bend of a moment
Nothing calmed my fear, I doubt and I wait for you
God lose the steps he makes when you are absent to me
A look is sufficient for you to make a beautiful weather
When comes the evening which turns through the door
To live suddenly has the depth of a wheat field
I find you back love with my trembled hands
Which make the tender soil between the dead leaves
And we get rid of our stolen clothes
Didn't see the leaves come
Didn't see the leaves fall
What have you come to tell me?
Why did you come over?
No I did not know
No I did not learn
And how is it already
To not be here?
Make me come back to the world
Touching it without putting gloves on
Even to feel it collapse
Even if it doesn't believe like before
Make me recover my shadow
Lost in the shadow which is holding me
The memories of tomorrow
No, I will not go out
Why did you come?
How did you remember
That I was still there?
Streets, avenues, are doing very well without me
I lived too many things
That I do not understand
Make me come back to the world
Touching it without putting gloves on
Even to feel it collapse
Even if it doesn't believe like before
Make me recover my shadow
Lost in the shadow which is holding me
The memories of tomorrow
Didn't see the leaves come
Didn't see the leaves fall
How do you want to love
When you can't tell
If it's winter, summer
If it's better or worst
You will not insist
I hear the steps creak
She gets ahead of the steps
Of those who are going to leave
Isn't there in me
Someone under the sighs
Someone who would like
to see the leaves come
Make me come back to the world
Touching it without putting gloves on
Even to feel it collapse
Even if it doesn't believe like before
Make me recover my shadow
Lost in the shadow which is holding me
The memories of tomorrow
Of arrows thrown under the roof timbers
Make me come back to the world
Original Title: "Des filles il en pleut"
Text: Pierre Seghers (1958)
Music: Léo Ferré
Year: 1959 (Ferré on the radio but only released in 2006 on album), only released in 2007 on album for Jacques Douai's version
It's raining girls
Blond and blue ones
It's raining girls
My beloved
Crying girls
And flower girls
It's raining girls
My beloved
But none will have
Your laugh and your arms
But none will have
Your lips
But none will go
As far as you
But none will have
My dreams
It's raining girls
But where are your eyes
And your joyful body
My beloved
It'll have rained so much
In my heart, you know
That I don't see them no more
My beloved
You were for me
My earth and my woods
My country, my faith
My beloved
You were for me
The queen of a king
Who lost for you
His life
It's raining girls
Since your farewell
It's raining girls
My beloved
Yes but little by little
I die at this game
Without sun nor fire
My beloved
Come back, come back to me
Days are months
Come back, come back to me
My beloved
Wasn't forgetting you
While it was raining
Me, I was waiting for you
My beloved
It's not just in Paris
That crime flourishes
We, in the village, also have
Nice assassinations
We, in the village, also have
Nice assassinations
He had a hoary head
And an ingenuous heart
He had a return of spring
For one of twenty
He had a return of spring
For one of twenty
But fresh flesh, tender flesh
Old pal, it's expensive
After five or six kisses
His gold had run out
After five or six kisses
His gold had run out
When her little hand she held out
Sad he answered
That he was as poor as Job
She put her dress back on
That he was as poor as Job
She put her dress back on
She went seeking her rascal
Who had the lure of gain
Came back to the curmudgeon
To play a dirty trick
Came back to the curmudgeon
To play a dirty trick
And while he held him for her
She assassinated him
It's said that when he expired
She showed him her tongue
It's said that when he expired
She showed him her tongue
Turned everything upside down
Didn't find a penny
But creditors' letters
But bailiffs' seizures
But creditors' letters
But bailiffs' seizures
Then stricken with a real remorse
She felt sorrow for the dead one
And on him falling on her knees
She says "Forgive us"
And on him falling on her knees
She says "Forgive us"
When the Gendarmes* arrived
They found her in tears
It's a tear at the bottom of the eyes
Which earned her the heavens
It's a tear at the bottom of the eyes
Which earned her the heavens
And the morning she was hanged
She was in paradise
A few devouts since that time
Are slightly unhappy
A few devouts since that time
Are slightly unhappy
It's not just in Paris
That crime flourishes
We, in the village, also have
Nice assassinations
We, in the village, also have
Nice assassinations
Original Title: "La draguée haute"
Year: 1982
Play on words on "hold out on somebody" which in french is said "holding the sugar-coated pill high" here it's replaced by a girl being picked up and resisting.
That house lost in the plain without trees
A car stipped down in the courtyard next to the well
made of tires hidden there. Like Paul and Virginie
Both of us with crazy love, it's like that, but of course!
I offer you this palace if you tell me "I love you"
And if you don't tell me, okay, I don't offer you
Most of all pretend to be the one: who is that guy with his air,
I am not interested. Comon, focus
On your knees pull your skirt down and make them
A low profile. Your eyes through the window, tell them
That they run away with the nests of the possible loves which
Are going away to the obsessing rythm of the cruel bogies
Oh pretty traveller that my courting irritates
We are alone in the carriage, it's destiny
I like your early fruits complexion and your haughty contempt
And then look at me, please, when I plead
Why do you refuse to believe in love at first sight
Under the pretext that we don't even know each other
Imagine that you see the Virgin of Lourdes
You would believe if it was her! Well: It's me!
Impassive but true, I love you in my beard
If I told you, you wouldn't believe me
And that's why I keep quiet since Tarbes
I laugh alone and you plunge lower
You look in your bag for one or another bullshit
To cool the furnace lit under your wall
A good photo romance "Luxury and fiery nights"
Phew! I finally see your hard-boiled eye bearnaise melt*
That mouth there must shout some very rare shouts
And lick like does the sea the beach. And those eyes
They are the fire of the wreckers or well the lighthouses
Of which are the bumpers, your terrific breasts
Well, you wouldn't think of it but here we are in Paname³
Farewell Madam, one does not get bored with you
Don Juan resumes his journey while looking for his Don Juanne
She moves away her dignified look Donia Gnagna
She charges at home and there, quivering with ease
"I met an handsome dude, but for goodness' sake handsome dude!"
Just between Cythera of the Bodies and the Aubraises
We loved each other at least six or eight times
Then the wrath of the good god falling over her
Changes her into a mare to be covered or salt statue
Avenging me, me, the tongue hanging out, my defects
That statue you see her in front of the stations
Proclaiming to the pigeons "The woman is eternal"
I am collector of jackets² in the eye of the beauties
I put my hands in the pockets, nothing in the hands
With scenarios of girls "not smart"
* another play on words "oeuf dur" (hard-boiled egg) with "oeil dur" (hard-boiled eye)
² Used to be beaten hollow
³ Paris
Original Title: "La vie en rose"
Piaf herself sang the song in English here of course the words had been adapted for that version so here is a word to word translation of the french version:
Year: 1945
Eyes that makes mine lower
A laugh getting lost on his mouth
Here is the portrait without alteration
Of the man I belong to
When he takes me in his arms
He talks to me in a low voice
I see life in pink
He tells me love words
Words of the everyday
And it has an effect on me
He entered in my heart
There are no happiness
Of which I know the cause
It's him for me
Me for him in life
He told me, swore to me, "For life"
And as soon as I catch sight of him
Then I feel inside of me
My beating heart
Never-ending love nights
A big happiness settling in
Some troubles, sorrows fade
Happy, happy to die of it
When he takes me in his arms
He talks to me in a low voice
I see life in pink
He tells me love words
Words of the everyday
And it has an effect on me
He entered in my heart
There are no happiness
Of which I know the cause
It's him for me
Me for him in life
He told me, swore to me, "For life"
And as soon as I catch sight of him
Then I feel inside of me
My beating heart
Original Title: "Les feux de Paris"
Text: Louis Aragon
Year: 1994
Always when to the obscene mornings
Between the legs of the Seine
Like a drowned woman with crazy eyes
From the mist of your poems
The Saint-Louis Island is rising pallid
Baudelaire I think of you
When I learned to see things
Oh slowliness of the metamorphosis
It's your Paris I saw
It was required for Paris to change
Like the oranges turn blue
The whole length of my life
But to seek those adventures
The city threw its belt away
of walls of herbs and of wind
She painted her landscape
Like a girl does of her face
To seduce a new lover
Nothing is at the same place no more
And the water of the Wallace fountains
Cries after the merchants of wafers
Who were shouting Pleasure Ladies
When the pianos were practising scales
In the lounges for outfits
Where are the big tapestry makers
The reed pipes in the dust
Where are the weddings in songs
Where are the mules of Réjane
One does not go on donkey's back
To have lunch in the grass at Robinson's
What good can it do to you
One does not choose his hell
Backward what's the point to search
That the past consumes itself without you
It's here that your fate lights up
One does not choose his bonfire
With your steps the clouds move
Go away in the street with the red eye
The world bleeds in front of you
You walk in a barbarian day
The present time is burning in the Snackbars
Its purple dawn is on the roofs
To hell with the lunar beauty
And the millenial darkness
Spotlight on the Champs-Elysées
Here is the new carnival
Where electricity gives a facelift to
The edifices set ablaze
Spotlight on the man and on the woman
On the Louvre and on Notre-Dame
From the Sacré-Coeur to the Panthéon
Spotlight from the Concorde to the Ternes
Spotlight on the modern universe
Spotlight on our soul with neon
Spotlight on the darkness of the dreams
Spotlight on the arts of lies
Burn perpetual summer
Burn of our human flame
And that everywhere our hands bring back
The sun of the truth.
Sorry for that girl
We made cry
Sorry for that gaze
That we leave laughing
Sorry for that face
That a tear changed
Sorry for those houses
Where someone waits for us
And then for all those words
Which we call love words
And that we use
By way of currency
For all those oaths
Which died at daybreak
Sorry for the never's
Sorry for the always's
Sorry for the hamlet
Which never sing
Sorry for the villages
Which have been forgotten
And sorry for the cities
Where noone know one another
Sorry for the countries
Made of non-commissioned officers
Sorry to be of those
Who do not care about anything
And for not having
tried everyday
And then sorry still
And then sorry most of all
For never knowing
Who has to forgive us
Original Title: "La chasse à l'enfant"
Text: Jacques Prévert (1934)
Music: Joseph Kosma
Year: 1936
Bandit! Rascal! Thief! Scoundrel!
Above the island, birds can be seen
All around the island there is water
Bandit! Rascal! Thief! Scoundrel!
What are those howls
Bandit! Rascal! Thief! Scoundrel!
It's the pack of honest people
That is hunting children down
He said "I am done with the reformatory"
And the wardens had broken his teeth using their keys
And then had let him lying down on the cement
Bandit! Rascal! Thief! Scoundrel!
Now he ran away
And like a hunted beast
He gallops in the night
And all gallop after him
The gendarmes, the tourists, the person of private means, the artists
Bandit! Rascal! Thief! Scoundrel!
It's the pack of honest people
That is hunting children down
To hunt children down, no need of a permit
All the decent people got down to it
What is swimming in the night?
What are those flashes those noises?
It's a child who is running away
He is being shot at with a rifle
Bandit! Rascal! Thief! Scoundrel!
All those men on the shore
Are empty-handed and purple* with rage
Bandit! Rascal! Thief! Scoundrel!
Will you get back to the continent?
Above the island, birds can be seen
All around the island there is water
If I knew how to speak about Ostende
Me, I'd give her your name
I would tell to whom wants to hear it
That you deserve a song
Ostende, you made it so pretty to me
Noone ever changed Paris for me
And of wave's memory
If one has to believe the waves
And of seaweed's memory
If one has to believe the seaweeds.
There hasn't been before
Lovers as beautiful as us
Even so that Tristan
Was sleeping at our knees
If I knew how to speak about Ostende
I'd ask her forgiveness
Because I swear to whom wants to hear it
That it always bore your name
Ostende which was making her ships silent
I know, it was to better hear your laugh
And we were standing
Without knowing that it was raining
While drinking that thunderstorm
Oh God, how I loved you!
The words you told me
Are not those that one writes down
Feathers and poets
Are quiet sometimes
If I knew how to speak about Ostende
I would not say anything about the sea
But I'd say to whom wants to hear it
That love gives you green eyes
I do not know how to talk about Ostende
I can only make a song
You only will be able to understand
That all along, I have said your name
The walls of my life are smooth
I hang onto them but I slide
Slowly toward my fate
To die of loving
While the world is judging me
I can only see one shelter for me
Any exit being locked up to me
To die of loving
To die of loving
Willingly sinking into the night
Pay love at the cost of one's life
Sin against the body but not against the mind
Let's leave the world to its problems
Hateful people to face themselves
With their narrow ideas
To die of loving
As our love can't live
Better then to close its book
And rather than burn it
To die of loving
To leave while lifting your head up
Coming out victorious from a defeat
Reversing all the data
To die of loving
To die of loving
As we can of anything
Abandon everything behind us
To only take away what was us, what was you
You are the spring, I the fall
Your heart is taken away, mine is given
And my road already marked out
To die of loving
To die of loving
To die of loving
Original Title: "Heureux celui qui meurt d'aimer"
Text: Louis Aragon
Year: 1967
Oh my garden of fresh water and shadow
My dance of being, my dark heart
My sky of the countless stars
My smallboat in the distance, sweet to row
Happy the one who becomes deaf
To the song if it's not about his love
Blind to the day after his day
His eyes on you alone closed
Happy the one who dies of loving
Happy the one who dies of loving
To love so strongly, his lips closed
That he does not need anything
But the memory of the roses
Forever perfumed of you.
The one who dies even with pain
To whom without you the world is delusion
And holds nothing else from it but your colors
It's sufficient for him that he named you.
Happy the one who dies of loving
Happy the one who dies of loving
My child, he says, my sweet soul
The time to know you, Oh woman
Eternity is nothing else but a swoon
To the fire of which I am consumed
He said, Oh woman and may he keep quiet
The name which resembles to the glowing embers,
To the mouth red, to the strawberry
Forever in his teeth formed.
Happy the one who dies of loving
Happy the one who dies of loving
He said: Oh woman, and comes to an end
So goes life, so does the dream
And be it on the Place de Grève
Or in the accustomed bed,
Young lovers you whose age it is,
Between the round and the journey,
Crazy ones sparing yourselves thinking yourselves wise
Shout to those who want to blame you
Happy the one who dies of loving
Happy the one who dies of loving
Original Title: "La maison au bord de la route"
Year: 1982
It's a song for the childhood
To sing for a long time
With words like "hope"
and "sunset evening"
The house on the edge of the road
Under the cheery trees
Smokes to dismiss the doubt
Like a dog lying down
Like a dog lying down
The neighbors who are old and wise
Spoil the children
The lady talks of the Mage Kings
and him of the Uhlans
One does not believe in it
But we dream, during the month of may, the gardens
Are full of rumours and of sap
And of love in june
And of love in june
I lived in another life
Or in some past
In that house, that life
And that dreamt time
The hostess is blond with periwinkly eyes
Color of the curtains
When the weather is fine, the house leans
the shoulder in the water
the shoulder in the water
Nearby, there is a basilica
Between two windmills
One climbs up in the authumn crocus
And the sailor songs
Covered in bouquets When we go back home
Each engaged
We sing to follow the slope
and destiny
and destiny
The house is like a beast
Hidden in a corner
Sweet and warm like the head
At the hollow of the hand
The hostess went over the barrier
Carried by the lover
And the scene fills with proud joy
The eyes of the children
The eyes of the children
It's a song for childhood
To sing for a long time
With words like "hope"
and "sunset evening"
Original title: "Les amants d'un jour"
Text: Claude Delécluse and Michèle Senlis
Music: Marguerite Monnot
Year: 1956
Me, I wipe the glasses at the back of the café
I have way too much to do to be able to dream
But in that setting, so banal you could cry
It seems to me that I still see them arrive
They arrived, holding each other by the hand
looking filled with wonder
Like two cherubs
Carrying the sun
They asked
With a tranquil voice
A roof to love one another
In the heart of the city
And I remember
That they looked with a melting look
At the hotel room with the yellowed wallpaper
And when I closed the door on them
There was so much sun in the bottom of their eyes
That it hurt me
That it hurt me
Me, I wipe the glasses at the back of the café
I have way too much to do to be able to dream
But in that setting, so banal you could cry
It's body against body that they have been found
We found them holding hands
Eyes closed up
On other mornings
Filled with sun
They have been laid
Joined and tranquil
In a digged bed
In the heart of the city
And I remember
Having closed in the early morning
The hotel room of the one day lovers
But they planted at the bottom of my heart
A piece of sun and so many colors
That it's hurting me so much
That it's hurting me so much
Me, I wipe the glasses at the back of the café
I have way too much to do to be able to dream
But in that setting, so banal you could cry
There is still outside: the "Room to rent".
It has been sung by other singers, an example below
Daniel Guichard's version:
And most importantly here is Piaf singing the song in an English version:
Even if one day, in Knokke-Le-Zoute
I become, like I dread,
Singer, for declining women
Even if I sing to them "Mi Corazon"
With the bandoneoning voice
Of an Argentinian from Carcassonne
Even if people call me Antonio
That I burn my last fires
In exchange of a few gifts
Madam, I do what I can
Even if I get drunk on mead
To better be able to talk about virility
To grannies decorated
Like christmas trees
I know that in my drunkenography
Every night for pink elephants
I will sing my morose song
The one of the time when my name was Jacky
To be one hour, just one hour
To be one hour, one hour sometimes,
To be one hour, just during one hour
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful and idiot at the same time
Even if one day in Macau
I become joint governor
Circled with languid women
Even if tired to be a singer
I became blackmailer²
And that it'd be the other ones who sing
Even if people call me the beautiful Serge
That I sell boats filled with opium
Whisky from Clermont-Ferrand
True gays and fake virgins
That I have a bank at each finger
And a finger in each country
That each country would be mine
I still know that every night
Alone at the back of my opium den
For a public made of old Chinese people
I will sing my own song
The one of the time when my name was Jacky
To be one hour, just one hour
To be one hour, one hour sometimes,
To be one hour, just during one hour
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful and idiot at the same time
Even if one day in Paradise
I become, like I'd be surprised of it,
Singer for women with white wings
Even if I sing them Alleluhia
While regretting the time of down there
Where it's not sunday everyday
Even if I am called God the Father
The one who is in the phone book
Between Dieulefit³ and God bless you
Even if I let my beard grow
Even if still too much a sucker
I kill my heart and the pure spirit
wanting to console men
I know still that every night
I will hear in my Paradise
The angels, the Saints and Lucifer
sing to me the song of former times
The one of the time when my name was Jacky
To be one hour, just one hour
To be one hour, one hour sometimes,
To be one hour, just during one hour
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful and idiot at the same time
² Master singer in french
³ Could be translated to Goddidit
Marriage for love, marriage for money
I have seen all kind of people getting married
People of low source, and men in high places
Supposed hairdresser, so-called notaries
Even though I would live up to the end of times
I'd always keep the happy memory
Of the day of poor wedding
when my father and my mother
Went to marry in front of Mr the Mayor
It's in a ox cart if one has to speak frankly
Pulled by the friends, Pushed by the parents,
That the old lovers made their nuptials
After a long time of love, a long time of betrothal
Nuptial procession outside of the ordinary order
The crowd look covetously us with a protuberant eye
We were contemplated by the futile world,
Which had never seen a wedding of that kind.
Here comes the wind which blows, taking away, heartbreak,
My father's hat and the altar boys
Here comes the rain which falls while well weighing its drops
As if to prevent the wedding at all cost
I will never forget the bride in tears
Rocking, like a doll, her big flower bouquet...
Me, to console her, me, with all my haughtiness,
On my harmonica, playing the great organs.
All the boys of honour, showing their fist to the sky
Were shouting, by Jupiter, the wedding goes on
By the disparaged men, by the annoyed gods
The wedding goes on and long live the bride
Original Title: "Voilà, c'est cette nuit"
Year: 1974
That's it. It's this night, you have been run over by a car
Goblin plaza you are losing your blood in front of four or five night owls
You notice that the agents are slow and that you are not afraid
Today, tuesday, your mom is ironing the linen
She has no news from you
You wouldn't have written much while saying a few not very clever verses
Aside in insolence and friendship you didn't have that many talents
You lived, you attended to the most urgent things first, you have lost your time
I have lost my time and my life attempting to be free
I have lived happily fighting between the silence and the difficult words
The ambulance I recognize it, it ressembles to my childhood bed
My older brother is next to me, he is playing harmonica to me
I am going to die at the hour I like, at the hour when I liked to live
The night I was watching over you my friends known and unknown
I penetrated between your closed eyelids in the warmth of the small boats
Or in your dreams which are to all the same and talk of justice
It's a nice hour to die and it's a nice place
Dawn is coming like a woman's belly in its folly of leaves
I spent my life getting ready for that moment
Younger brother of all the free men
To never, ever, talk to you about rain again,
Nevermore about the heavy sky, never of the grey mornings,
I came out of the mists and I ran away,
Under lighter skies, countries of paradise,
Oh, how I would have liked to bring you, tonight,
seas in fury, barbarian musics,
Happy songs, laughs which are sounding weird
And would make to you the sound of an happy hullabaloo,
White seashells and salty pebbles
which are rolling under the waves, brought back a thousand times,
Radiant suns*, bursted suns,
Which fire would burn eternal summers
But I have tried everything
I pretended to believe,
And I come back from far,
And the sun is black
But I have tried everything
And you can believe me,
I come back tired,
And it's despair,
Light-hearted, so light-hearted, I was going around dressed short,
I was happy with the first to come
And it was the rest, the time of the nonchalance,
Kissing eagerly, and I was entering the dance,
I learned bandjo over guitar's tunes,
I shivered from the back, I forgot Mozart,
Finally, I would be able to come back to you,
With the eye made languid, vague with memories,
And I was the hurricane and the rage of living
And I was the torrent and the strength of living,
I have loved, I have burned, caught up my delay
How life was beautiful and crazy my story.
But the earth opened
Over there, somewhere,
But the earth opened,
And the sun is black,
Some men are walled up,
Over there, somewhere,
Some men are walled up,
And it's despair,
I averted the fate, I have looked for oblivion,
I refused death, I rejected boredom
And I clenched the fists ordering me to believe,
That life was beautiful, luck was fascinating
Which lead me here, elsewhere or somewhere else,
Where the flower was red, where the sand was blond,
Where the noise of the sea was a song,
Yes, the noise of the sea was a song,
But a child is dead,
Over there, somewhere,
But a child is dead,
And the sun is black,
I hear the knell which sounds,
Over there, somewhere,
I hear the knell sounding,
And it's despair,
I do not bring anything back, I am torn,
I come back to you, tonight, heart scratched,
Because, to look at them, to hear them live,
With them, I hurt, with them I was drunk,
I do not bring anything back, I come back lonely,
From the end of that journey beyond the borders,
Is there one corner of earth where nothing is being torn,
And what has to be done, can you tell me,
If one has to go further to erase your tears,
And if I could, alone, make the weapons go silent,
I swear that, tomorrow, I go back on the adventure,
So that ends, forever, all those tearings,
I don't mind trying,
And I don't mind believing in it,
But I am tired,
And the sun is black,
Sorry to tell you that,
But I come back, tonight,
The heart scratched,
And it's despair,
The heart scratched,
And it's despair,
The despair...
*"radiant reds" in version below in which Barbara also says "My sun is black" as well as "And I am despaired"
I was the child who was running less fast
I was the child who was thinking himself less beautiful
I was already living in the empty pages
Where I was looking for water springs
I was the one, at the shoulder of the numbers,
Who was leaning. Who was found back asleep
I knew the voices that in the Dombes
Nest under the thousand ponds
I was afterward
The teen who is being mocked
With the vain gaze
In the city, lost
The man who camps
Out of the way of the era
Poking his doubts
to warm himself up from them
I climbed to the lake
of the solitudes
At the grey case
of the charms without reasons
Where old tunes were beating under the moon
I'd have left some flesh at the brambles of the songs
The low key of mounts of the absences
The emeralds of the forbidden valley
All the beautiful ruins of the silence
All which will not be said
If you ever hang onto my legend
You have to put yourself in my ill's hands
Don't betray, see the wound where pours out
a whole animal world
The mute child found shelted in the man
He is listenning to the rain on the blue roofs
The hearts are collapsed, the steeples ring
What to do without you when it's raining
My life was nothing more but that dream's failure
I do not burn anymore, no, those are my bonds
The unarmed hoofs have stamped me endlessly
I write in the empty sky and you won't read anything there
My life was nothing more but that dream's failure
I do not burn anymore, no, those are my bonds
The unarmed hoofs have stamped me endlessly
I write in the empty sky and you won't read anything there
Original Title: "La folle"
Text: Louis Aragon
Music: L. Leonardi
Year: 1966
Have a look at this crazy woman and her ankle shoes
She has all the streams in her enamel eyes
She has all the birds on her straw hat
And her handbag her dreams of when she was twenty years old
Have a look at this waste of tulle and anemone
That dusty dream like an old ashtray
It's yesterday's sheet on the calendar
The faded refrain of an autumn song
Have a look at this smile and that flutter
Almost nothing would be enough for us to start believing them
Would it be for the deep cruelty of the mirrors
And that faded reflection which looks like a renunciation
It's my life, I well have to recognize her
It's my life, and it's me, that distorted song
One fine evening the future is called the past
It's then that we turn and see our youth...
What more were you expecting, which fate, which adventure
Which glory for you only or which stolen happiness
What else are you in the end but what the wheat is to the millstone
What the ash is to the fire, the body to the torture...
I don't see really what grieves you here
Or gives you the right to shout in the night
Your destiny resembles you and your shadow follows you
The crazy ones are those who think themselves others
They hold each others by the hand
And walk in silence
In those faded cities
which are rocked by drizzle
Only their steps ring
Hummed step by step
They walk in silence
The desperates
They have burnt their wings
They have lost their branches
Shipwrecked in such a way
That death looks white
They come back from loves
They have awaken
They walk silently
The desperates
And I know their way for having walked it
Already more than a hundred times
A hundred times more than halfway
Less old or more bruised
They are going to reach its end
They walk in silence
The desperates
And below the bridge
Water is sweet and deep
Here is the good hostess
Here is the end of the world
They cry their firstname
Like newlyweds
They melt in silence
The desperates
Let stand up the one
who throws them the stone
He only knows of love
The verb "to love oneself"
On the bridge there is nothing left
But a light mist
They are forgotten in silence
The ones who have hoped
You are completely naked
Under your sweater
There is the street
Which is crazy,
Pretty kid
You have your heart
Around your neck
And happiness
Tucked under
Pretty kid
You have the mascara
That goes away
It's the thaw
Of the lovers
Pretty kid
Your meadow
It smells good
Make a gift out of it
To friends
Pretty kid
You are just a flower
Of the spring
Who doesn't care of the hour
And the weather
You are just a rose
Burst
Which one lays down
On the side
Pretty kid
You are just a touch
of sun
In the grief
of waking up
You are just a camp
Who is turned off
Like a lamp
In the morning
Pretty kid
Your kisses
Are sharp
Like an acute accent
Pretty kid
Your small breasts
are fresh of the day
Soft-boiled
To love
Pretty kid
Your barrier
Of rustles
Gotta get stuck with it
But it's soft
Pretty kid
Your violet
Is the violen
Which is being assaulted
And it's good
Pretty kid
You are just a flower
Of pastimes
Who doesn't care of the hour
And the weather
You are just a star
of love
Which is being webbed
During the fine days
Pretty kid
You are just a point
On the "i"
Of the sorrow
Of live
And just a thing
Of life
Which is watered
Which is being forgotten
Pretty kid
You only have one pair
of eyes
At the poker
Of the conquests
Pretty kid
You only have one rhyme
to happiness
It has to rhyme
or to cry
Pretty kid
You are just a source
In the middle
which splashes
of some good lord
Pretty kid
You only have one door
made of a white veil
Which we push
While singing
Pretty kid
You are just a poor
small flower
Which one make sentimental
And who dies
You are just a woman
To iron
When her soul
Is creased
Pretty kid
You are just a leaf
of autumn
Which one removes the petals from
Monotomous
You are just a joy
gone away
Come at my place
To find it back
Pretty kid
You are completely naked
Under your sweater
There is the street
That is crazy
Pretty kid!
Original title: "La fille dont auquelle"
Year: 1985
This song is parody, mocking the way some people talk so I tried to translate the deliberate errors the best I could.
Here is well the girl whose whom I love and that passionatefully
Even though she might be way too beautiful and too rich of course but that naturally
It's the daughter of the boss where I work
Why she doesn't like me I do not know
Because despite I am not the good-looker
I am decent and even rather fine
It's a thing that it'd be fine
To go away, her and me, just us both
But as there are the social barriers
It can't be, it's unfortunate
Here is well the girl whose whom I love and that passionatefully
Even though she might be way too beautiful and too rich of course naturally
I consider that she doesn't care if I exist
She doesn't pay me at all attention
Would it be that I am only an underling
I would note that she has some pretension
It's because of being too poor, it's likely
Not everyone can call themselves differently
I only have a moped and even that when the weather is fine
And if it want like to start even more, it's pathetic
Here is well the girl whose whom I love and that passionatefully
Even though she might be way too beautiful and too rich of course naturally
If it's like that, it's not without good reason
It's this which reiterates my father
"It's the same. Me, I loved his mother, right?
We are being scorned, it's not from yesterday"
Okay, well, let's admit she'd have come over at my place
For some or other argument,
A paper or something,
It has been seen: She knocks, I open, there is an embarassed silence
Here is well the girl whose whom I love and that passionatefully
Even though she might be way too beautiful and too rich of course naturally
Her oppressive breathing would beat like a tv wire
I opened the arms in a waiting to such extent that she would haved shouted
Caught up by the demons of the flesh
Bewitched by the mysteries of the charm
We rolled on the bed and on the ground
Intertwined like an alarm signal
Here is well the girl whose whom I love and that passionatefully
Even though she might be way too beautiful and too rich of course naturally
Me, I like the defenseless gazelle
When their big eyes shout "Zero to the juice!"
She would have had her pleasures of the senses
On that side I am not too bad either
Then at that point maybe she loves me
And that we would married what do we know
And I would becoming the husband that she herself
It was the one I just chattted to you about
Here is well the girl whose to whom
she is my wife and I the spouse
I am the assistant manager
By the fact itself which of which
By the fact itself which of which
The forget-me-not and then the rose,
Those are flowers which mean something
But to like poppies
And not like anything else...One must be an idiot!
Maybe you are right! The only thing is,
when I will have told you, you will understand!
The first time I saw her,
She was sleeping, half naked
In the light of the summer
In the middle of a wheat field
And under the white blouse
Where her heart was beating
The sun, gently,
was making a flower live
Like a small poppy, my soul!
Like a small poppy.
It's strange how your eyes are shining
While you remember the pretty girl!
They shine so strongly that it's a bit too much
To explain...the poppies!
Maybe you are right! The only thing is
When I took her in my arms
She gave me her beautiful smile
And then afterward, without telling each other anything
In the light of summer
We loved each other! We loved each other!
And I have pressed so much
My lips over her heart
That right where I kissed her
There was like a flower
Like a little poppy, my soul!
Like a little poppy.
It's nothing else but an affair
Your little story, and I swear to you
That it does not deserve a single sob
Nor that passion...for the poppies!
Wait for the end! And you will understand:
Another one was in love with her who she did not love!
And the next day, when I saw her again
She was sleeping, half naked,
In the light of the summer
In the middle of the wheat field
But, on the white blouse,
Right where her heart is
There were three drops of blood
Which were making like a flower
Like a little poppy, my soul!
A very small poppy
Original Title: "Votre fille a vingt ans"
Text: Georges Moustaki
Year: 1968, 1970 (Moustaki's release)
Your daugther is twenty years old, how time is flying by
Madam, yesterday still she was so small
And her first torments are your first wrinkles
Madam, and your first worries
Each of her twenty years counted twice for you
You know already all what she is discovering
You have forgotten the things which trouble her
Madam, and troubled as well
People thought she was pretty and here she is beautiful
For an individual almost as young as her
A boy who resembles to the one for whom
Madam, you had grown in beauty
They make for themselves a garden from a corner of bad weeds
Knotting the prime of life into a superb bouquet
It has been a long while that you have been put in a spray
Madam, spring is forgetting about you
Each night which seems to you similar to every night
While you are dreaming your reasonable dreams
Of pleasure and of love they make themselves guilty
Madam, in the hollow of the same bed
But guilty ones never had so much innocence
So little regrets and so little concern
That they do not even ask for you indulgence
Madam, for their tender offence
Up to the day when maybe at the first tear
At the first love's and woman's sorrow
It'll be up to you to smile Madam
Madam, for her to smile at you.
for her to smile at you.
At my last meal
I want to see my brothers
And my dogs and my cats
And the sea shore
At my last meal
I want to see my neighbors
And then a few chinese
By way of cousins
And I want us to drink there
In addition to communion wine
Of that so pretty wine
That we drank in Arbois
I want us to devour there
After a few soutanes
A pheasant poultry
Coming from the Perigord
Then I want to be taken away
On top of my hill
To see the trees sleeping
While closing their arms
And then I want to still
Throw stones toward the sky
While shouting "God is dead"
One last time
At my last meal
I want to see my donkey
My chickens and my geese
My cows and my women
At my last meal
I want to see those hussies
Of whom I was master and king
And who were my mistresses
When I will have in my paunch
enough to drown the earth
I will break my glass
To ask for silence
And will sing my head off
To the advancing death
The bayard romances
Which scares the nuns
Then I want to be taken away
On top of my hill
To see the evening making its path
Slowly toward the plain
And there, standing up still
I will insult the bourgeois
Without fear and without remorse
One last time
After my last meal
I want people to go away
For them to finish feasting
Elsewhere than under my roof
After my last meal
I want to be installed
Sitting, alone, like a king
Welcoming his vestals
In my pipe, I will burn
My childhood memories
My unfinished dreams
My remains of hope
And I will only keep
To dress my soul
nothing but the idea of a rosebush
And a firstname of a woman
Then I will look at
the top of my hill
Which danses, which is being made out
And ends up sinking
And in the scent of the flowers
Which will soon go out
I know that I will be afraid
One last time
Leave me to my memories
Leave me to my dead loves
It's time to close the door
It's getting time to go to sleep
I wasn't always well attired
I had the hair in the eyes
But this is how he took me
I think that he loved me a little
It's raining
On the garden, on the shore
And if I have water in the eyes
That's because it's raining over my face
The North wind which piles up
Has fun alone in my hair
I wasn't always very beautiful
But I think that he loved me a little
My dress still has its mends
And I still have the hair all over the place
But that's how he took me
I think that I loved him a lot
It's raining
On the garden, on the shore
And if I have water in the eyes
That's because it's raining over my face
If I have melted so many candles
Since the time we saw each other
And if I remain faithful to him
What good does me so much virtue?
Leave me to my dead loves!
Leave me to my memories
But before closing the door
Leave me the time to laugh about it
The time to try to smile about it
It's raining
On the garden, on the shore
And if I have water in the eyes
That's because it's raining over my face
Original Title: "A Paris dans chaque faubourg"
Text: René Clair
Music: Maurice Jaubert
Year: 1933, 1982 (Bertin's version)
They lived in the same suburb
The same street and the same courtyard
He was throwing smiles at her
She loved him without telling him
But one day that a kiss united them
In the sky she thought she read
Like an infinite hope
In Paris in every suburb
The sun of each day
Makes in some destiny
Hatch a dream of love
Among the crowd a love lands
On a twenty year old soul
For her everything is metamorphosed
Everything is the color of spring
In Paris when the day breaks
In Paris in every suburb
When you are twenty you make dreams
All in the color of love
In a minute the spell can break
The tender hope born in a kiss
A reproach, a quarrel
He went away far from her
Another girl is between his arms
Did he know what conceals
Love which does not talk
In Paris in every suburb
Every time the day ends
At the time when dreams are born
Shatters a dream of love
Farewell happiness
Farewell poor story
Memories always so strong
Everything is parting us
And in the memory
Everything is of the color of death
In Paris when the day ends
In Paris in every suburb
At the time when dreams are born
Dies a dream of love
After days without hope
Both met one evening
They did not dare to smile
But their eyes managed to read
That soon they could be happy
And if they could not say anything to each other’s
Their eyes talked for them
In Paris in every suburb
When the dreaming night came
At any time a moved soul
Evokes a dream of love
Of the happy days there are no trace left
Everything has the color of the night
But when you are twenty the future erases
The past when hope shines
In Paris as soon as the night came
In Paris in every suburb
At any time a moved soul
Still dreams about love
