Monique Morelli - Ronsard - Time is going away

Original Title: "Le Temps s'en va"
Text: Pierre de Ronsard
Year: 1978

Time is going away, time is going away, my Lady,
Alas! Time does not but we, we are going away,
And soon we will be stretched out under the blade
Time is going away, time is going away, my Lady,

I am sending you a bouquet, that my hand,
Just selected among those flowers in full bloom
Which if had I not picked them up during those vespers
Would have fallen to the ground tomorrow

Time is going away, time is going away my Lady,
Alas! Time does not but we, we are going away,
And soon will be stretched out under the blade
Time is going away, time is going away my Lady,

Let it be to you a sure example
That your beauties, even though they are blossomed
In a little bit of time, will be withered
And, like flowers, will perish all suddenly

Time is going away, time is going away my Lady,
Alas! Time does not but us, we are going away
And soon we will be stretched out under the blade
Time is going away, time is going away my Lady,

The original poem finishes with those two verses:
And those loves of which we talk about
When will be dead, no one would hear about them anymore


All poems written by Ronsard

Jean Ferrat - Aragon - At the end of my age

Au bout de mon âge Jean Ferrat par rozenfelds
Original Title: "Au bout de mon âge"
Text: Louis Aragon

Year: 1965

At the end of my age
What would I have found
To live is a village
Where I have badly dreamt

I feel alike
To the first oaf
Who is still filled with wonder
at the songs of the birds

People of my kind
There are many
Do they know they carry
A stone around the neck

At the end of my age
What would I have found
To live is a village
Where I have badly dreamt

For them the mirrors
It's more often than not
Without even seeing themselves
That they pass in front of them

They have no sense
Of what their life is
It's an innocense
Which I envy them

At the end of my age
What would I have found
To live is a village
Where I have badly dreamt

As much for the pleasure
Than for poetry
I believed I was chosing
And I was chosen

I believed myself free
On an iron thread
When any equilibrium
comes from the pendulum

At the end of my age
What would I have found
To live is a village
Where I have badly dreamt

I had to be born
And dieing follows
I was only made to be
What I am,

A season of man
Between two tides
Something like
A lost song

At the end of my age
What would I have found
To live is a village
Where I have badly dreamt

All poems written by Louis Aragon

Jean Ferrat - Louis Aragon - Robert the devil

Original Title: "Robert le diable"
Year: 1971
Song written by Louis Aragon in memory of Robert Desnos

You were carrying in your voice something of a song of Nerval
When you were speaking of blood, peculiar young man
Giving emphasis to cruelty with your regular verses
The butchers' laugh were escorting you in the markets
You had in those days those accent of impossible
which I hear reverberate through the years
Twenty year old poet assassinated in advance
And that were already avenged by the blasphemy and the insult

I think of you Desnos who left from Compiègne
Like one evening while sleeping you told us the story of it
To fulfil to the end your own prophecy
Over there where the destiny of our century bleeds

Standing under a porch with a cornet of fries
Here you are under bad weather near Saint-Merry
Staring at the world with insolence
Of your look alike to the one of Amphitrite
Enormous and quivering of a pale steam
And the ground at your foot alike to the foam at the bare breast
Covers itself with cigarette butts, with spits, with vegetables
In the steps of the rain and of the prostitutes

I think of you Desnos who left from Compiègne
Like one evening while sleeping you told us the story of it
To fulfil to the end your own prophecy
Over there where the destiny of our century bleeds

And it's you again who endlessly goes out for a stroll
Shepherd of the long desires and of the broken dreams
Under the dark trees in the Champs-Elysées
Until the exhaustion of the night, your domain
Oh the East Station* and the first croissant
The black coffee that one takes next to the coffee machine
The fresh newspapers the boulevards full of scents
The mouths of the metro which catches the passers-by

I think of you Desnos who left from Compiègne
Like one evening while sleeping you told us the story of it
To fulfil to the end your own prophecy
Over there where the destiny of our century bleeds

The city, a bit everywhere, keeps of your presence²
A shadow of colour to her dirty pediments
And when the day rises at the dim Sacré-Coeur
When on the Panthéon like a squaring off dusk puts its grazed scraps
When the wind screams wolf under the Pont-au-Change
When the sun in the Wood runs with the oranges
When the moon sits from church tower to church tower

I think of you Desnos who left from Compiègne
Like one evening while sleeping you told us the story of it
To fulfil to the end your own prophecy
Over there where the destiny of our century bleeds

*Gare de l'Est
²literally "coming through"/way

Christine Sèvres' version


All poems written by Louis Aragon

Edith Piaf - The Crowd

Original Title: "La foule"
Year: 1957 (adapted from an Argentinian song of 1936)

I see again the city celebrating and frenzied
Suffocating under the sun and the joy
And I hear the music, the shouts, the laughs
which burst and bounce all around me

Distraught among those people who bump into me
Scatterbrained, distraugth I stay there
When suddenly I turn around, He steps back
And he crowd just throws me in his arms

Carried away by the crowd which drags us, carry us away
Crushed one against the other we only form a single body
And the stream effortlessly pushes us both chained up
And leaves us both radiant, intoxicated and happy

Carried away by the crowd which rushes forward and dances
A wild farandole our two hands remained united
And at times lifted up our two bodies embraced take off
And come down again, radiant, intoxicated and happy

And the joy splashed by his smile,
pierces me and splash back up deep inside me
But suddenly I utter a shout among the laughs
When the crowd comes to tear him away from my arms

Carried away by the crowd which drags us, carry us away,
Moves us away from one another, I fight and I struggle
But the sound of my voice suffocates in other people's laughs
And I scream of pain, of fury and of rage and I cry

And dragged by the crowd which rushes forward and dances
A wild farandole I am carried far away
And I clench my fists, cursing the crowd that is stealing from me
The man that it had given me and who I have never found again.

Léo Ferré - Paul Verlaine - Green

Text: Paul Verlaine
Year: 1964

Here are some fruits, some leaves, some leaves and some branches
And then here is my heart which is beating for you only
Do not tear it with your two white hands
And to your eyes so beautiful may the humble present be sweet
May the humble present be sweet.

I arrive all covered with dew still
that the morning wind comes to freeze on my forehead
Allow that my tiredness at your feet rested
Dreams of the dear moments that are going to refresh it
That are going to refresh it.

On your young breast let my head roll
All sonorous still of your latest kisses
Let it be appeased from the good tempest
And that I sleep a little since you are resting
Since you are resting.

Live version:

Jacques Bertin - Should one be crazy

Original Title: "Faut-il être fou"
Year: 1967

Should one be crazy for having loved the wrinkles of an old Spaniard?
Be crazy for having quivered at the tears of a blind gypsy woman?
Be crazy for having leaped at the fist raised of an old Quixote?
Here, fifteen hundred Moorish sacred hearts and the flag of Charles V
Climb to nail my eyes at the wall of an Andalusian convent

At home there are heavy fountains and after season apples
Fifteen kids yearning for dreams go there to spring songs up
At home of crazy legs girls go along the mornings of thistles
Pray Sint Anne in her chapels in her rose and gorses bouquets
At home every girl is called Anne and they all have white breasts
Heavy thighs and vast hips, I lead my herds there to dream
At home, I have four friends, four poets: Pierre, Jacques, Yves and Joël
Pierre, Jacques, Yves and Joël, oh, let's not have me forgotten
Let's not have forgotten our girls, our mischiefs and our songs

Here, behind an old stone low wall, I wait for death in a sleep
Populated with the milk of white women at the cold of an horizontal marble
THe night, the night on my stone rifle I bite Andalusian horses
I hurt gypsys in their vagina, I kiss red spaniels
And sweet white gazelles, and I burn orange trees

Here, there is a shy kid with tulles of princesses
Who burns my Republicans
Last morning of my youth
Torn with rape and blood
Death is coming, bleak morning
Eighteen nights lead me there
Eighteen dreams to come there
Eighteen dreams to die there

I think to all my years
I think to all my gazelles
My abandonned gazelles
Pierre, Jacques, Yves and Joël
We have forgotten each others well
Here is the Bitch who is coming and I have the eternity for myself
For a song in the ground where love is finally real

Jacques Brel - My childhood

Original Title: "Mon enfance"
Year: 1967

My child hood passed
From greyness to silences
From fake bows
To lack of battles
The winter I was in the belly
Of the big house
Which had dropped anchor
At the north among the bulrushes
The summer half naked
But completely modest
I became Indian
Although already sure
that my full up uncles
Had stolen me my Far West

My childhood passed
Women in the kitchen
Where I was dreaming of China
Grew old in meals
The men at the cheese
Were wrapping themselves with tobacco
Taciturn and wise Flemish
And didn't know me
I who every night
Kneeled for nothing
Played in arpeggios my sorrow
At the bottom of the too big bed
I wanted to take a train
That I have never taken

My childhood passed
From servant to servant
I was already surprised
That they weren't plants
I was surprised still
of those family circles
Strolling from dead to dead
And which are dressed by mourning
I was mostly surprised
To be of that herd
That was teaching me to cry
That I knew too well
I had the eye of the shepherd
But the heart of the lamb

My childhood blew up
It was the teenage years
And the wall of silence
One morning shattered
It was the first flower
And the first girl
The first kind one
And the first fear
I was flying I was swear
I swear that I was flying
My heart opened the arms
I wasn't a barbarian nomore

And war arrived

And here we are tonight.

Jacques Bertin - The attic

Original Title: "Le Grenier"
Year: 1968

In the big attic of my soul
I smother very discreetly
I breathe but I have the mouth
Full of spiderwebs
I make big motionless steps
I shout but I do not hear myself

There is there a sticky warmth
In an indecent bric-a-brac
I see there Good Lords with manes
Coming out of hatboxes.
My revolutionnary friends
Run in circles bare-bottomed.

On the bicycle of my sundays
Comes a grocer with pompons.
Then a slightly too old woman
White belly and black stockings
Collapses among the shelves
On the knees of a senator

In a wedding dress my mother
Cries silently in a corner
between fashion plates
and the doilies of the christians
Dad is a pallbearer
And is holding the knees of the general

The aspergillums of the morale
And those of the revolution
Against a bare chested girl
The petticoat very low on the hips
Who would like to get me something to drink
And who is being tracked down in the books

I finally arrive at the window
But when I am going to come out to the day
I die stuck in the picture
Frozen in an immense smile
Right next to the passing time
That is waving me a big hello

Edith Piaf - My legionary

Original Title: "Mon légionnaire"
Text: Raymond Asso
First sung by Marie Dubas
Year: 1936

He had big eyes, very clear,
where sometimes lightning passed
Like in the sky the thunderstorms passes

He was covered in tattoos
That I never really well understood
His neck wore "Not seen not taken"
On his heart one could read "Noone"
On his right arm one word "Resound"

I do not know his name
I do not know anything about him
He loved me the whole night
My legionary

And leaving me to my destiny
He left in the morning full of light
He was thin, he was beautiful
He smelled good the warm sand
My legionary
There was sun on his forehead
That were putting light in his blond hair

Happiness lost, happiness fled
Still I think about that night
And the desire for his skin gnaws at me
Sometimes I cry then I think
That when I was over his heart
I should have shouted my happiness
But I did not dare to tell him anything
I was scared to see him smile

He was found in the desert
He had his beautiful eyes opened
In the sky clouds were passing
He showed his tattoos while smiling
Showing his neck "Not seen not taken"
Showing his heart "Here noone"
He did not know, I forvige him

Though I was dreaming that destiny
Would bring one fine morning
My legionary
That we would go away far
Both of us
In some marvellous country
Full of light

He was thin, he was beautiful
He was put under the warm sand
My legionary
There was sun on his forehead
That were putting light in his blond hair

Marie Dubas' version:

Jacques Bertin - I have not much to say

Original Title: "J'ai peu de choses à dire"
Year: 1974

I have not much to say, afterall
I am not looking for much
And everything else it's a clothing over me
More or less tailored

I can well share your combat, your certainties,
blotting paper
The ill, mine, is elsewhere
A lantern that remained lit

I write, my wife sleeps
I gather a meager luggage
some meager goods
Some vague ideas
Attempts of notions

All what I subscribe to
is that in good understanding
One has to admit
remains of your wardrobes,
ideas of revolution

What do I have that belongs to me?
My mother who washes on mondays
When she cries it's because her eyes are full of soap
The linen dries, the kitchen is wet
The radio covers the shouts of the kids

I have nothing but a banal childhood
Like a cardboard schoolbag
Oh the warm apartments
The beautiful ladies
Men who talk very well
and read progressive newspapers

As if the world belonged to you
Oh young men of means
You are the best up unto the revolt
Oh impeccable rebels

What do I have that belongs to me?
The silence of the children of the poors
And two or three details to tell to the buddies
The days of abandon

A sunday morning during the winter
One day when I was a kid
It was warm, outside I hear the dynamo pass

What is it? My possession.
What can I put in the balance?
A memory devoid of interest
A Good Friday night We were going
to drink a 25 francs coffee
On a countryside table

Downtown some gentlemen and ladies
talk about the poets
with some deportment
What do I have to say?
Noone gave me the right to speak

I have the coat pierced to the winds
to the stars of the revolution
I am on my bicycle
I come home by the white cross
Oh my father and my mother
Leave the garage lit
I come back home

Boris Vian - The Deserter

Original Title: "Le Déserteur"
Year: 1955, 1964 (Reggiani's version)

Mister the President
I am writing you a letter
That you will maybe read
If you have the time

I've just received
My military papers
To go to war
Before wedsneday evening

Mister the President
I don't want to do it
I am not on earth
To kill poor people

It's not to make you mad
I have to tell you
I have made my decision
I am going to desert

Since I am born
I have seen my dad die
I have seen my brothers go away
And cry my children

My mother suffered so much
That she is in her grave
And does not care of the bombs
And does not care of the worms

When I was a prisonner
I have been robbed of my wife
I have been robbed of my soul
And of all my dear past

Tomorrow early morning
I will close my door
At the nose of the years bygone
I will go on the roads

I will beg my life
On the roads of France
From Britany to Provence
And I will tell people

Refuse to obey
Refuse to do it
Don't go to war
Refuse to go away

If one has to give his blood
Go give yours
You have an holier-than-thou attitude*
Mister the President

If you pursue me
Warn your gendarmes²
That I won't have any weapon
And that they will be able to shoot

*You are a good apostle is the word by word translation
²gendarmes are policemen belonging to the army branch

Serge Reggiani live:

Serge Reggiani's version:

Marcel Mouloudji's version:

Monique Morelli - Louis Aragon - An October tune

Original Title: "Un air d'Octobre"
Text: Louis Aragon
Year: 1966

A tune like a vast train
A tune which never ends
An October tune, a romance
Softer than the month of may
A tune that always starts again

Your eyes have the horizon sickness
Crazy the one who finds azure blue enough
To whom the sky isn't a prison
One has to love with immoderation
Reason is not enough

Beautiful autumn with velvet hands
It's the song that is never sung
It's the song of our love
It's the song of the tea-roses
Which heart have the color of the day

A tune like a vast train
A tune which never ends
An October tune, a romance
Softer than the month of may
A tune that always starts again

Is there a deep enough sob
To tell the physical deserts
Alike to the circles one makes in the water
Are the words matching the music
Of the long desire in the heart enclosed

A tune, Elsa, of dementia
A tune which never ends
An October tune, a romance
Softer than the month of may is
A tune like a vast train

A tune like a vast train
A tune which never ends
An October tune, a romance
Softer than the month of may
A tune that always starts again

All poems written by Louis Aragon

La Tordue - Moon

Original Title: "Lune"
Year: 1998

You have the age of your craters
Oh old moon
Midwife² of the universe
If there is one
You rule over the flow of the seas
And over Neptune
What are you hiding in your behinds?
Some fortune?
Be wary of those who planted
Into your dunes
Their warlike banners
Brothel with feathers
The vanity of worms
Inopportune
Of those big beer drinking feet
Without any embarrassment in the slightest

Let the one who said
Idiot like the moon
Go to hell.
And if to each one his own
It's you I prefer
I like at night and without costume
Of sea bathing
To swim in your reflections of foam
In your light
As if I was flying at
a loved one
Made of an enchantment of lagoons
of winter circuses

Burning with hopes to see your mists
That are thirst-quenching
The nectar of the wine we inhale
When comes brumaire
My soul stroll in there as a
Deleterious funambulist
That the song free like the air of an
Ephemeral rose
In curls of incense which smoke
in the skies
To you, muses among all, Oh moon
Let it be offered to you

Let the one who said
Idiot like the moon
Go to hell.
And if to each one his own
It's you I prefer

² in french midwife is the said "Wise-woman"

Georges Brassens - Happy the one who like Ulysses

Original Title: "Heureux qui comme Ulysse"
Music from the movie with Fernandel.
The first sentence comes from a sonnet by Joachim Du Bellay

Year: 1970

Happy the one who, like Ulysses,
Has made a beautiful trip
Happy the one who, like Ulysses,
Has seen hundred landscapes
And then has found back
After many crossings
The country of the green years

By a little summer morning
When the sun is singing in your heart
How beautiful freedom is
Freedom
When we are feeling better here than elsewhere
When a friend makes happiness
How beautiful freedom is
Freedom

With the sun and the wind
With the rain and the fine weather
We were living happily
My horse, my Provence and I
My horse, my Provence and I

Happy the one who, like Ulysses,
Has made a beautiful trip
Happy the one who, like Ulysses,
Has seen hundred landscapes
And then has found back
After many crossings
The country of the green years

By a little summer morning
When the sun is singing in your heart
How beautiful freedom is
Freedom
When hardships are over
When a friend dries up your tears
How beautiful freedom is
Freedom

Lashed by the sun and wind
Lost in the middle of the ponds
We will live happily
My horse, my Provence and I
My horse, my Provence and I

Barbara - Incestuous loves

Original Title: "Amours incestueuses"
Year: 1972

My love, my beauty, my king
My child whom I love
My love, my beauty, my law
My other self
You are the setting sun
fell on earth
You are my last spring
My god, how I love you

I had already done my way
I was walking toward the silence
With quite some insolence
I did not want anyone no more
I was going forward in an autumn
My last autumn maybe

I did not desire anything nomore
But like a miracle
You appeared in my light

And you my love, my king
Shattering my borders
And you my setting sun,
My sky and my earth
You gave me your twenties
From the heart of yourself
You are my last spring
My god, how I love you

I always thought that loves,
The most beautiful loves,
Were the incestuous loves
There was in your eyes
There was in your eyes
A luminous tenderness

You wanted to live with me
The most beautiful loves
The loves that are the most beautiful

I reopened my house
Wide my windows
And I crowned your forehead
I kissed your mouth
And you my adolescent
You, my tear,
You laid your twenties
To my forties

But barely are they born
That they are already condemned
The loves of desperation
For to never become tarnished
That diamond that was given to us
I burnt our cathedral

The most beautiful loves,
The loves that are the most beautiful
Are the incestuous loves

Farewell, my love, my king
My child whom I love
Later you will understand it
When one loves one has to
Leave at the most beautiful I think
And hide one's sorrow

My love, my child king
I go away and I love you
This is my truth
From the heart of myself

Live version: