Dominique A - To come back to the world

Original Title: "Revenir au monde"
Year: 2004

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

Jacques Douai - It's raining girls

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

Léo Ferré's version:

Georges Brassens - The assassination

Original Title:"L'assassinat"
Year: 1962

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

* Men-at-arms

Jacques Douai - Carrier - Deadwool

Original Title: "Mortlaine"
Text: Louis Georges Carrier
Year: 1958

My drowned of infinite
My drowned of sorrow
My big paradise
My beautiful Deadwool

Her quail feet on the strand
Her ivory arms in the sea,
Her hair of water, wet with dreams,
Her body bathed with eternity

My drowned of infinite
My drowned of sorrow
My big paradise
My beautiful Deadwool

By the slow masts of the breeze
The sand would make castles
Near my beauty who sinks
Like a mast of a lost ship

My drowned of infinite
My drowned of sorrow
My big paradise
My beautiful Deadwool

The fishermen in their white boats
All full with blue fishes
Will maybe come back on Sunday
To brush the silent banks

My drowned of infinite
My drowned of sorrow
My big paradise
My beautiful Deadwool

Their steps like sounds of harp
Will dance the joy of the returns
While over there a scarf
Will florish the night sand

My drowned of infinite
My drowned of sorrow
My big paradise
My beautiful Deadwool

Jacques Bertin - The picked up high

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

Jacques Douai - André Maurois - The birds and the dreams

Original Title: "Les oiseaux et les rêves"
Text: André Maurois
Music: Henri Salvador
Year: 1952

Birds and dreams
Are for those who can take them
Birds and dreams
Are for those who can wait

And you pursue them
The birds and the dreams
If you pursue them
Take off straight away

Wait for them to land
While looking elsewhere
Wait for them to land
With a mocking look

Then when they curl up
At the hollow of your hand
Then when they curl up
Then hold them tight

When love shows up
It scares the beauties
When love shows up
They are more cruel

Wait for them to come
While looking elsewhere
Wait for them to come
With a mocking look

Birds and dreams
Are for those who can take them
Birds and dreams
Are for those who can wait

Henri Salvador's version:

Edith Piaf - Life in Pink

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