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.