Léo Ferré - This wound

Original Title : "Cette blessure"
Year: 1970

This wound
Where dies the sea like a flesh sorrow
Where goes life to germinate in the desert
Which makes of blood the whiteness of the cribs
Which closes up at the marble of the tomb
This wound from which I come
This wound
Where my lip at dawn of love
Where beats your fever a bit like a drum
Where leaves your vine when pressing fingers on it
Where the shout comes, the same every time
This wound from which you come
This wound
Which closes up at the edge of boredom
Like a scar of the night
And which never stops reopening
Under some tears sharpened by desire
This wound
Like a sun under melancholy
Like a garden which we only open at night
Like a perfume which lags during the tide
Like a smile on destiny
This wound from which I come
This wound
Draped of silk under its black triangle
Where go the surveyors of fate
To build from nothing some assisted sorrows
While digging there for the sin
This wound from which you come
This wound
Which we would like sewn in the middle of desire
Like a sewing over pleasure
Which we would like to see close forever
Like a door opened on death
This wound of which I die

Léo Ferré - The chimerical pond

Original Title: "L'étang chimérique"
Text: Léo Ferré
Year: 1958

Our most beautiful memories blossom on the pond
In the faraway castle of a faraway Spain
They tell us of the time lost oh my companion
And that white water lily it's your twenty year old heart

One day we'll embark
On the pond of our memories
And will do again just for the sake of it
The sweet journey of life
One day we'll embark
My sweet Pierrot my great friend
To never ever come back

Our bad memories will drown in the pond
Of that faraway castle of a faraway Spain

And we'll only keep for ourselves oh my companion
That white lily and your twenty year old heart

One day we'll embark
On the pond of our memories
And will do again just for the sake of it
The sweet journey of life
One day we'll embark
My sweet Pierrot my great friend
To never ever come back

Then everything will be illuminated my friend

Jacques Bertin's version:

Dominique A - Music Hall

Year : 2006

Big anxious grey skies
Nail the bathing day to the ground.
The man advances in the middle of the dunes
He walks swaying
He remembers the Music Hall
The long funnel corridor
Where the crowd was unwinding
Dresses hanging only by a thread
And the wet, wet sidewalk.

He advances in the middle of the dunes
Gomina beaten by the wind
He thinks it's eight o'clock in the evening
And he walks down the hall
Where the shoulders rustle as they slip
The crowd takes place in the heart of the dunes
The sea clapped loudly.

"You don't know how to say farewell to it"
Did she tell him last night
"You won't see if I leave
My road does not pass through your eyes
In your head, it's eight o'clock in the evening
Forever, here or elsewhere
It's the velvet of the long corridor
That we would find, if we opened your heart”.

At the Casino which watches over the dunes
The machines wake up, gasping,
A few orphans of the moon
Are already conscientiously working
At accumulating misfortune
A large strong coffee awaits
Near the rattling machines
As he enters, he sees the carpet
And he sees lights from the past.

" You don't know how to say farewell to them
Nor to those big red letters
Nor to the disorder of intermissions
Nor to the curtains which go floating
You remind yourself of the Music Hall
Of some laughter and tightened throats
And the rustling of the shoulders
And outside, the wet sidewalk”

Seaside boulevard, the house
In the heart of other silent houses
Mouths closed once the summer is passed
The table laid, the slender woman
The plate that just needs to be warmed up
And the evening before still vibrating
Of the few brewed truths
He forgives her without an effort
It was too real to touch it.

They kiss, she goes to work
She has the forgiveness of the ghost
And the unshaken hope;
Love rears up in the hall
Where memory has condemned him
With the great swaggering sadness
Of the decayed end of parties
Where the clothes take a break
And the heart is undressed.

And under the gray skies which worries
In the dunes or at the Casino
Among the hiccupping machines
He looks, he sees hoops
Of fires browning the carpet
And he sees some curtains falling
Hands clapping in the storm
Outside.

And he sees the letters
Red, and the crimson corridor
And all the possible of the nights
Which is displayed, red, spelled out
And none of this is over
Love nestles there, unbroken
And all the goodbyes are entangled in it
How to say goodbye to life?

He remembers the music hall
From the long funnel corridor
Where the crowd was unwinding
Dresses hanging by a thread
And wet, wet sand.

Edith Piaf - Prévert - When you sleep

Original Title: "Quand tu dors"
Text: Jacques Prévert
Music: Christiane Verger
Year: 1961

You, you sleep at night
Me, I have insomnia
I see you sleep, it makes me suffer

Your eyes closed
Your tall body lying down
It's funny but it makes me cry
And suddenly, here you are laughing
Laughing out loud while sleeping
Where are you right now?
Where are you gone really?
Maybe with another woman
Far away in another country
And with her you are laughing of me
You, you sleep at night
Me, I have insomnia
I see you sleep, it makes me suffer

When you are sleeping, I don't know if you love me
You're so close but still so far
I'm completely naked, huddled against you
But it's as if I wasn't there
Yet I hear a beating heart
I don't know if it's beating for me
I know nothing, I don't know anymore
I'd like for it to stop beating, your heart
If one day you stop loving me

You, you sleep at night
Me, I have insomnia
I see you dream
It makes me cry

Here comes the day
And suddenly you awaken
And you smile at me
You smile with the sun
And I don't think to the night anymore
You say the words always the same
Did you have a good night
And I answer like the day before
Yes honey, I slept well
And I dreamt of you like every night.

Cora Vaucaire's version:

Barbara's version:

Léo Ferré - The artist's life

Original Title: "La vie d'artiste"
Year: 1950

I met you by chance,
here, elsewhere or somewhere else
Maybe you remember it
Without knowing each other we fell in love
And even if it's not true
One has to believe in the ancient stories.
I gave you what I had:
What to sing, what to dream
And you believed in my Bohemia
But if you thought at twenty years old
That one can live of the spirit of time
Your point of view is not the same

This infamous end of the month
Which since we are you and me
Is coming back seven times a week
And our evenings without cinema
And my success which is not coming
And our uncertain means of sustenance

You see I haven't forgotten anything
In this statement of affair sad to make one cry
Which records our failure
You still have nice days ahead of you
Enjoy them my poor love
Beautiful years are passing by fast.

And now you are going away
Both we are going to grow old
Each for himself how sad that is
You can take the record player away
Me, I'll keep the piano
I continue my life of an artist

Later, without knowing why
A foreigner, a clumsy man
Reading my name on a poster
Will talk to you of my successes
But a little sad, you, who knows
You'll tell him that I flaunt myself.