Barbara - The black sun

Original Title: "Le soleil noir"
Year: 1968

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"

Jacques Bertin - The dreamer

Original Title: "Le rêveur"
Year: 2002

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

Monique Morelli - Louis Aragon - The crazy woman

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

All poems written by Louis Aragon

Jean Ferrat - Comrade

Jean Ferrat Camarade
Original title: "Camarade"
Year: 1970

It's a pretty name
Comrade
It's a pretty name
You know

Which marries cherry and pomegranate
To the blood flower of the month of May

For years
Comrade
For years
You know

With only your name as dawn serenade
Lips blossomed

Comrade
Comrade

It's a dreadful name
Comrade
It's a dreadful name
To say

When the time of a masquerade
It does nothing else but quiver

What are you coming to do
Comrade
What are you coming to do
Here

It was at 5pm in Prague
That the month of August grew dark

Comrade
Comrade

It's a pretty name
Comrade
It's a pretty name
You know

In my heart beating wildly
So that it lives again forever
Marry cherry and pomegranate
To the blood flower of the month of May