Léo Ferré - Paul Verlaine - Poetic art

Original Title: "Art poétique"
Text: Paul Verlaine
Year: 1964

Music before anything else
And for that prefers the irregular verse
More vague and more soluble in air
Without anything in it which weights or poses

You must not either
Choose your words without some misunderstanding
Nothing is dearest than the grey song
Where the indecisive joins the precise

It's beautiful eyes behind veils
It's the bright day shivering at noon
It's, through an autumn sky cooled down,
The blue jumble of the clear stars!

Because we want the shade again
Not the color, just the shade!
Oh the shade only marries
The dream to the dream and the flute to the horn!

Run the farthest away from the murderous point
The cruel spirit, and the impure laugh
Which make the eyes of the Azure cry,
And all that garlic of low kitchen!

Take the eloquence and break its neck!
You will do well, in energetic spirit,
To give back the tempered rhyme
If we do not pay attention, up to where will it go?

Oh who will say the wrongs of the Rhyme?
Which death child or crazy negro
Has forged us that one penny jewel
Which sounds hollow and fake under the file?

Some music still and always!
Let your verse be the flown away thing
That we feel flees from a departed soul
Toward other skies and other loves

Let your verse be the good adventure
Scattered to the tense wind of the morningv Which goes smelling of mind and thyme...
And everything else is literature.

Jacques Brel - To see a friend in tears

Original Title: "Voir un ami pleurer"
Year: 1977

Of course there are the Irish wars
And the tribes without music
Of course all that lack of tender
And there is no America anymore
Of course money does not have a smell
But no smell goes up to your nose
Of course we walk over flowers
But, but to see a friend in tears

Of course there are our defeats
And then death which is at all at the end
Our bodies already tilt the head
Surprised to still be standing
Of course, the unfaithful women
And the murdered birds
Of course, our hearts lose their wings
But, but to see a friend in tears

Of course those exhausted cities
By those fifty year old children
Our powerlessness to help them
And our loves that have toothaches
Of course, the time which is going too fast
Those subways filled with drowned people
The truth which is avoiding us
But, but to see a friend in tears

Of course, our mirrors are upright
Nor the courage to be a jew
Nor the elegance to be a negro
We think ourselves wick but are nothing but tallow
And all those men who are our brothers
So much that we are not surprised anymore
That, out of love, they lacerate us
But, but to see a friend in tears

Léo Ferré - Paul Verlaine - Moonlight

Original Title: "Clair de lune"
Text: Paul Verlaine
Year: 1964

Your soul is a chosen landscape
Where goes charming Masques et Bergamasques*
Playing some luth and dancing and almost
Sad under their weird disguise

While singing on the minor mode
The victorious love and the opportune life
It does not seem like they believe in their happiness
And their song mixes with the moonlight

Under the clam moonlight, sad and beautiful,
Which makes the birds dream in the trees
And the water jets sob of extasy

The big water jets svelt among the marbles

*Opera by G. Fauré

Other version:

Frehel - Tender song

Original Title: "Chanson tendre"
Text: Francis Carco
Year: 1935

At the memory of our twenties
By this fine morning of spring
I wanted to see again all over there
The inn surrounded by lilacs
We were hearing in the branches
The birds singing Sunday
And your chaste white dress
Seemed to be guiding my steps

Everything looked at its place
Even your name on the mirror
Right at the place where fades,
No matter what we do,
All traces.
And almost believed I was hearing
You tender voice whisper
“Come closer”

I was moved like in the past
In that inn in the deep of the woods
I had tears in the eyes
And I was finding that wonderful
For the whole day,
In your abandonned bedroom
After so many years
I saw us both again

But nothing was at his place
I remained, head lowered,
To pucker at myself in the mirror
Face to face
Grimacing...
Finally I pushed the door
What do I care
N.I. NI
It's over.

Yet when the evening came down
I went alone to sit down
On the worm-eaten woodbench
where you never came back
You looked to me more beautiful
More charming, more cruel
Than any of all those
For whom my heart has beaten

Everything looked at its place
Even your name on the mirror
Right at the place where fades,
No matter what we do,
Every trace.
Then with a poor laughter
I believed I read:
"After all,
We do not care"