Barbara - Nantes

Year: 1964

It's raining over Nantes
Give me your hand
The sky of Nantes
Makes my heart despondent

A morning like that one
Barely one year ago already
The city had that pallid colouring
When I went out of the station
Nantes was then unknown to me
I had never been there
That message had been needed
For me to do that trip:

"Madam, be at the rendez-vous
Twenty five Grange-au-Loup² street
Be quick, there is little hope
He asked to see you."
At the time of his last hour
After many years of wandering
He came back to me right in the heart
His cry pierced the silence
Since he had gone away
For a long time, I had hoped for him
That vagabond, that missing person
Here he was back to me

Twenty five Grange-au-Loup street
I remember the rendez-vous
And I engraved in my memory
That bedroom at the end of a corridor

Sitting near a fireplace
I saw four men standing up
The light was cold and white
They were wearing Sunday clothes
I didn't ask any question
To those peculiar companions
I said nothing, but from their gazes
I understood that it was too late

Yet I was at the rendez-vous
³ Twenty five Grange-au-Loup street
But he never saw me again
He had already disapeared

There, you know the story
He came back one evening
And it was his last trip
And it was his last shore
He wanted before dieing
To warm himself up with my smile
But he died that same night
Without a farewell, without an "I love you"

At the path that borders the sea
Lying in the garden of stones
I want that tranquil he rests
I layed him down beneath the roses
My father, my father

It's raining over Nantes
And I remember
The sky of Nantes
Makes my heart despondent

²"Barn of the wolves" is the litteral translation of the street name
³ The "live" version above is slight different here: "Twenty five Grange-au-Loup street
He wasn't at the rendez-vous anymore
He had died that same night
Without a farewell, without an "I love you"

There, you know the story
Of the man who came from nowhere
And who came back like a wreck
From the end of his last trip
Of the vagabond, the badly loved
Who when remiscing the past
wanted before falling asleep
To warm himself up from my smile

Other versions:

Sung by Actor G. Depardieu