Jean Ferrat - Tell me about the sea

Original Title: "Raconte-moi la mer"
Text: Claude Delecluse
Music: Jean Ferrat
Year: 1965

Tell me about the sea
Tell me the taste of the seaweeds
And the blue and the green
Dancing on the waves.
The sea is the impossible
It's the happy shore
It's the peaceful morning
When we open our eyes
It's the gate of the open sea
Opened with its two door wings.
It's the head on a journey
Towards other continents.
It's flying like Icarus
Going out to meet the sun
By closing one's memory
To this cruel world.
The sea is the desire
Of this country of love
That will have to be discovered
Before the end of the day.

Tell me about the sea
Tell me its pale dawns
And the blue and the green
Where some stars fall
The sea is the innocence
Of the lost paradise
The garden of childhood
Where nothing sings anymore
It's the foam and the sand
Always repeated
And life is alike to
The rythm of the tides
It's the endless distress
Of the things that are going away.
It's everything that is leaving us
during the dead season.
The sea is the regret
For that country of love
Which we are always looking for
and that we never reach.

Tell me about the sea
Tell me the taste of the seaweeds
And the blue and the green
Dancing on the waves

Gribouille - To die tomorrow

Original Title: "Mourir demain"
Year: 1965

I'm going to die tomorrow
At the station's post
Shot by a train
At the field of the black rails

I'm going to die tomorrow
Of your last smile
And of too much sorrow
And of seeing you leave

I'm going to die tomorrow
At the gates of the town
Your name in each hand
And it'll be easy

I'm going to die tomorrow
Of your last trip
And of too much sorrow
Which costs me a wrecking

I'm going to die and that's fine
And I'm not mad at you anymore
Others died for nothing
I, from losing you

And I die this morning
But you have to think
That it does not change anything
You, you are going on holiday

Jacques Marchais - Bérimont - Song to name her

Original Title: "Chanson pour la nommer"
Text: Luc Bérimont
Music: Michel Aubert
Year: 1965

She is like a well of foliage
Sweet like the flank of the wind
Panicked like a blazing fire
Drifting like a cloud

She is the sweat and the swimming
She is the sand in full noon
A damp tuft of night
Caught between the moon and midnight

She is the beauty and the suitable one
The indolent one, the hay of may
And among her tousled hair
The thin rain on the wild rose

And among her tousland hair
The thin rain on the wild rose

I believe the song has already been sung by Jacques Douai under the title "La servante" but haven't found it yet online.

Jacques Brel - The song of Jacky

Original title: "La chanson de Jacky"
Year: 1965

Even if one day, in Knokke-Le-Zoute
I become, like I dread,
Singer, for declining women
Even if I sing to them "Mi Corazon"
With the bandoneoning voice
Of an Argentinian from Carcassonne

Even if people call me Antonio
That I burn my last fires
In exchange of a few gifts
Madam, I do what I can

Even if I get drunk on mead
To better be able to talk about virility
To grannies decorated
Like christmas trees

I know that in my drunkenography
Every night for pink elephants
I will sing my morose song
The one of the time when my name was Jacky

To be one hour, just one hour
To be one hour, one hour sometimes,
To be one hour, just during one hour
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful and idiot at the same time

Even if one day in Macau
I become joint governor
Circled with languid women

Even if tired to be a singer
I became blackmailer²
And that it'd be the other ones who sing

Even if people call me the beautiful Serge
That I sell boats filled with opium
Whisky from Clermont-Ferrand
True gays and fake virgins
That I have a bank at each finger
And a finger in each country
That each country would be mine

I still know that every night
Alone at the back of my opium den
For a public made of old Chinese people
I will sing my own song
The one of the time when my name was Jacky

To be one hour, just one hour
To be one hour, one hour sometimes,
To be one hour, just during one hour
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful and idiot at the same time

Even if one day in Paradise
I become, like I'd be surprised of it,
Singer for women with white wings
Even if I sing them Alleluhia
While regretting the time of down there
Where it's not sunday everyday

Even if I am called God the Father
The one who is in the phone book
Between Dieulefit³ and God bless you

Even if I let my beard grow
Even if still too much a sucker
I kill my heart and the pure spirit
wanting to console men

I know still that every night
I will hear in my Paradise
The angels, the Saints and Lucifer
sing to me the song of former times
The one of the time when my name was Jacky

To be one hour, just one hour
To be one hour, one hour sometimes,
To be one hour, just during one hour
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful and idiot at the same time

² Master singer in french
³ Could be translated to Goddidit

Studio version:

Jacques Brel - The desperates

Original title: "Les désespérés"
Year: 1965

They hold each others by the hand
And walk in silence
In those faded cities
which are rocked by drizzle
Only their steps ring
Hummed step by step
They walk in silence
The desperates

They have burnt their wings
They have lost their branches
Shipwrecked in such a way
That death looks white
They come back from loves
They have awaken
They walk silently
The desperates

And I know their way for having walked it
Already more than a hundred times
A hundred times more than halfway
Less old or more bruised
They are going to reach its end
They walk in silence
The desperates

And below the bridge
Water is sweet and deep
Here is the good hostess
Here is the end of the world
They cry their firstname
Like newlyweds
They melt in silence
The desperates

Let stand up the one
who throws them the stone
He only knows of love
The verb "to love oneself"
On the bridge there is nothing left
But a light mist
They are forgotten in silence
The ones who have hoped

Jean Ferrat - Aragon - At the end of my age

Au bout de mon âge Jean Ferrat par rozenfelds
Original Title: "Au bout de mon âge"
Text: Louis Aragon

Year: 1965

At the end of my age
What would I have found
To live is a village
Where I have badly dreamt

I feel alike
To the first oaf
Who is still filled with wonder
at the songs of the birds

People of my kind
There are many
Do they know they carry
A stone around the neck

At the end of my age
What would I have found
To live is a village
Where I have badly dreamt

For them the mirrors
It's more often than not
Without even seeing themselves
That they pass in front of them

They have no sense
Of what their life is
It's an innocense
Which I envy them

At the end of my age
What would I have found
To live is a village
Where I have badly dreamt

As much for the pleasure
Than for poetry
I believed I was chosing
And I was chosen

I believed myself free
On an iron thread
When any equilibrium
comes from the pendulum

At the end of my age
What would I have found
To live is a village
Where I have badly dreamt

I had to be born
And dieing follows
I was only made to be
What I am,

A season of man
Between two tides
Something like
A lost song

At the end of my age
What would I have found
To live is a village
Where I have badly dreamt

All poems written by Louis Aragon

Charles Aznavour - Stay

Original Title: "Reste"
Year: 1965

Stay
Stay some more
With me
Over my body
In my arms
Embraced
Out of breath
Assuaged
Dazed
Stay in the warmth
Languid
In the enclosure
Of the night.
Over my heart
Without modesty
Passionate
Almost naked
Stay like that
Hungry for more
Over my life
Between my hands
Hair in a mess
possessed
stretched out
relaxed
Stay there
Without a word
On your joy
Over my skin
In hope
In the dark
Up to the morning
My love

Jean Ferrat - Louis Aragon - It's always the first time

Original Title: "C'est toujours la première fois"
Text: Louis Aragon
Year: 1965

At last, at last I find you back
You who had never been
Anything else but absent like a young she-wolf
Or the sleeping water at the bottom of the moats
Escaping under the sun of summer

You can open your arms a hundred times for me
It's always the first time

Absent like a souvereign
Who is seen passing between two hedges
Oh you so close and so distant
As soon as love spins its wool
Between our out of tune fingers

You can open your arms a hundred times for me
It's always the first time

The hunger of you which is devouring me
Makes me bend knees and arms
I would not have enough amphorae
Nor words again and again
To give birth to an end for it

You can open your arms a hundred times for me
It's always the first time

The thirst of you by which I tremble
My lip forever parched
My love what do you think of it
Is it of living or not together
That will be able to quench my thirst of it

You can open your arms a hundred times for me
It's always the first time

Love of you by which I exist
Has no other reality
I am nothing else but a name on your list
A step on the floor that the wind
erases before it existed

You can open your arms a hundred times for me
It's always the first time

You can open your arms a hundred times for me
It's always the first time

Live version:

All poems written by Louis Aragon

Gribouille - Mathias

Year: 1965

It's not the cross, not the banner*
To greet all the friends
And to carve on a stone
May the buddies remain here
Come on, Mathias, we have to go home
That time Mathias is the last
Stop, Mathias, crying so much
For three buddies dead at the war

It's not the cross, not the banner*
A pretty kid who gets married
And even if last year
It's to you she was saying "yes"
Come on, Mathias, we have to go home
That time Mathias is the last
Stop crying so much, Mathias,
It's only a love that is being lost

You speak too much, Mathias
You have to sing
You bore us, Mathias
You have to dance
We, we don't care, Mathias,
Of your past
And your sorrows, Mathias
Are old-fashioned, Mathias

It's not the cross, not the banner*
To feel his heart scratched
By too many thorns and too many stones
There is beer to warm yourself up
Come on, Mathias, we have to go home
That time Mathias is the last
Stop crying so much, Mathias,
What's the point of being sincere

You speak too much, Mathias
You have to sing
You bore us, Mathias
You have to dance
We, we don't care, Mathias,
Of your past
One more drink, Mathias
And go dance, dance, dance

*It's not the devil's own job
Other version:

Jean Ferrat - Aragon - It's an understatement to say that I love you

Original Title: "C'est si peu dire que je t'aime"
Text: Louis Aragon

Year: 1965

Like a torn cloth
We live together separated
In my arms I hold you absent.
And the wound meant to last
Is it required to feel it so deep
When the sky is limited to us?
It's an understatement to say that I love you

This existence is a farewell
And we both only have eyes
For the light turning down.
Put on seven league boots
While saying ourselves that there is no hurry
That's what it means to be old.
It's an understatement to say that I love you

It is as if never, ever
I had told you that I loved you
If I was worried to be surprised by
The night on my throat that lays
Her gloved fingers of sovereign
When never again it is the month of May
It's an understatement to say that I love you

When things are nothing more
than a remembrance of their thrill.
An echo of dead music.
The pain of the sound remains
which the more it fades out the stronger it becomes
It's not much, some words for the song.
It's an understatement to say that I love you
And I would only have said that I love you

All poems written by Louis Aragon

Jean Ferrat - Aragon - What would I be without you?

Original Title: "Que serais-je sans toi?"
Text: Louis Aragon (1956)
Year: 1965

What would I be without you who came to meet me
What would I be without you but an heart sleeping in the wood²
But this hour stopped at the dial of the watch
What would I be without you but this faltering

I've learned everything from you about the human things
And I've seen the world your way from then on.
I've learned everything from you: how you drink from fountains
How one reads in the sky, the distant stars
how from the passer-by who sings, you take up his song
I've learned everything from you up to the meaning of shiver

What would I be without you who came to meet me
What would I be without you but an heart sleeping in the wood
But this hour stopped at the watch's dial
What would I be without you but this faltering

I have learned everything from you as far as I'm concerned
That it's clear at noon, that a sky can be blue
That happiness isn't just a tavern's oil lamp
You took me by the hand in this modern hell
Where man doesn't know anymore what it's to be two
You took me by the hand like an happy lover

What would I be without you who came to meet me
What would I be without you but an heart sleeping in the wood
But this hour stopped at the watch's dial
What would I be without you but this faltering

Who talks of happiness often has sad eyes
Isn't it a sob of disappointment
A broken string at the guitarist's fingers
And nevertheless I tell you that happiness exists
Elsewhere than in dreams, elsewhere than up in the skies
Earth, Earth, here comes those unknown harbours

What would I be without you who came to meet me
What would I be without you but an heart sleeping in the wood
But this hour stopped at the dial of the watch
What would I be without you but this faltering

² link to the Sleeping Beauty

another version:


Sung by Marc Ogeret:

All poems written by Louis Aragon

Jacques Brel - Fernand

Slightly modified translation from http://lyricstranslate.com/en/fernand-fernand.html


Year: 1965

To think that Fernand is dead
To think that he's dead, Fernand
To think that I'm alone behind
To think that he's alone in front
He, in his last coffin
I, in my haze
He, in his hearse
And I, in my desert
In front there's only a white horse
Behind there's just me crying
To think there's not even wind
To shake my flowers
I, if I were the good Lord
I think I'd feel some guilt
To think that now it's raining
To think that Fernand is dead

To think that we are going through Paris
In the very ealy morning
To think that we are going through Paris
And it looks like Berlin
You, you, you don't know, you're sleeping
But it's a heartbreak
To have to go away
While Paris is still asleep
As for me, I'm dying to
wake some people up
I would make up a family for you
Just for your funeral
And then if I were the good Lord
I think I wouldn't be proud
I know, you do what you can,
But there is the way to do it

You know, I'll come back
I'll come back, often
In this fucking meadow
Where you have to rest
In the summer I'll give you some shade
We'll drink silence
To Constance, who doesn't
Give a damn about your shadow
And then adults are so stupid,
They'll probably manage to create a war for us
Then I'll come for good
To sleep in your graveyard
And now, good Lord
You will have a good laugh
And now, good Lord
Now: I will cry

Barbara - The hurt of living

Original Title: "Le Mal de Vivre".
Year: 1965

It doesn't warn when it arrives
It comes from far
It walked from shore to shore
The mug wedge-shaped
And then one morning, on waking
It's almost nothing
But it's there, it makes you sleepy
At the small of the back

The hurt of living
The hurt of living
That you have to live
Live what may

We can carry it accross our shoulder
Or like a jewel on the hand
Like a flower at the buttonhole
Or just at the tip of the breast
It's not necessarily misery
It's not Valmy, It's not Verdun
But it's tears at the eyelids
For the day that dies, the day that comes

The hurt of living
The hurt of living
That you have to live
Live what may

Whether you are from Rome or America
Whether you are from London or Peking
Whether you are from Egypt or Africa
Or from the Porte Saint-Martin
We all make the same prayer
We all go the same way
How long it's when you have to do it
with your hurt at the small of the back

As hard as they want to understand us
Those who came to us empty handed
We do not want to hear them anymore
We can't, we can't take it anymore
And all alone in the silence
Of a night that doesn't end anymore
Here we are suddenly thinking about
Those who never came back

From the hurt of living
Their hurt of living
They had to live
Live what may

And without warning, it arrives
It comes from far
It walks from shore to shore
The laugh on the corner
And then one morning, on waking up
It's almost nothing
But it's there, it amazes you
At the small of the back

The joy of living
The joy of living
Oh, come live it
Your joy of living

Jacques Brel - That lot there

Original Title: "Ces gens-là"
Year: 1965

At first, at first
There is the eldest
He who is like a melon
He who has a big nose
He who doesn't remember his name, Mister
So much he drinks
or so much he has drunk
Who does nothing of his ten fingers
but he who is worn out
He who has had it
and thinks himself the king

Who gets drunk every night
With bad wine
but who you find back in the morning
In the church kipping
Stiff like a protrusion
White like an Easter's candle
And then who stammers
And who has the eye that strays

Have to tell you, Mister,
that in that family you don't think, Mister
you don't think
you pray

And then, there is the other one
Carrots in his hair
Who has never seen a comb
Who is as nasty as he comes
What's more he'd give his shirt
to poor happy people
Who married the Denise
A girl from the town
Well, from another town

And it's not over
Who makes his small businesses
With his small hat, 
with his small coat,
with his small car
Who would like to look much
But who doesn't look much at all
You should not play the rich
when you do not have a coin

Have to tell you, Mister,
that in that family you don't live, Mister
you don't live
you cheat

And then, there are the others
The mother who says nothing or nonsense
And from the evening to the morning
Under his nice apostle face
And in his wooden frame
There is the father's mustache
Who died from a "sliding"
And who looks at his herd
Eating the cold soup
And it makes big "slurps"
And it makes big "slurps"

And then, there is the so old one
Who never ends vibrating
And we wait for her to kick the bucket
As she is the one with the dough
And we don't even listen
what her poor hands tells

Have to tell you, Mister,
that in that family you don't talk, Mister
you don't talk
you count

And then, and then, and then
There is Frieda who is beautiful like a sun
And who loves me the same as I love Frieda
Even that we often tell eachothers
that we'll have an house
with plenty of windows
with almost no walls
and that we'll live in it
and it'll be pleasant to be there
And if it's not sure
It's still "maybe"
Because the others do not want
Because the others do not want

The others they say like that:
That she is too beautiful for me
That I'm barely good to cut cats throats
I've never killed cats
Or it's been a while
Or I've forgotten
Or they stank
Anyway they do not want
Anyway they do not want

Sometimes, when we see each others
I swear, it's not on purpose
With her wetting eyes
She says she'll leave
She says she'll follow me
Then for a moment
For a moment only
then, me, I believe her, Mister
For a moment
For a moment only
Because in that family, Mister
You don't go away
You don't go away, Mister
You don't go away

But it is late, Mister
I have to go,
Home

Other version: