Jacques Bertin - At night we can't

Original Title: "La nuit on ne peut"
Year: 1977

At night, we can't really escape anymore
We enter a barn with a worrying framework like eternity
Childhood friends are sleeping in the hay
Sometimes one of them wakes up, and looks at me, and falls back asleep

There are some very young girls with whom I am madly in love
Some of their snow has remained on my shoulder
It has been so long and the snow remained
At night, we can't really escape anymore

I go out of my life on the quiet through the backdoor
Where are you? Where are you? Night uncovers and covers you, where are you?
Are you looking for me as well? Say
If we were going,
Like in the old days, to sleep in some chance decor with some good fires of scents
Would we be allowed to die there?

Lost children, punished children, are you roaming around the forbidden park
Where, night and day, God welcomes you just to give you the foretaste of return?

Jean-Roger Caussimon - On a wish by Paul Eluard

Original Title: "Sur un voeu"
Year: 1977

Any caress, any trust survive themselves
Those words so simple made of light
Were written by Paul Eluard
More fervent words than a prayer
And louder than a shout
They are stronger than invectives
Than violence or contempt
They spurted out like flowing water
There speaks the heart before the mind

Any caress, any trust survive themselves
Where are the singing futures
And that forever promised happiness
In the indifferent cities
Everybody thinks he sees his enemies
But if by chance it happens
To glimpse a friendly gaze
Among so many fleeing shadows
Let that gaze be passed on

Any caress, any trust survive themselves
For the motherly lulaby
The voice of the father at home
And for the memory of the one
Who loved you more than reason
Let nothing drift off
And let the happiness of a moment
Write itself on a sky of future
And shines with time
Any caress, any trust survive themselves

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

Jacques Bertin - To Doctor L.

Original Title: "Au Docteur L"
Year: 1977

Vehicule stopped on the side of the road
"Do you need help...comrade?"

I have seen you when I was passing by very fast.
Exhausted in the screaming morning which was coming
I have seen you and I didn't stop
I have seen too many tired men
Tired, exhausted, open mouth
Worn out by the road, impossible to hold on
when the day is coming

I have seen you in bars on the morning
When you have smoked your pack of cigarettes during the night
The alcohol ends up triggering the tide in you
The filter only sends in the circuit the words that really hurt

You are unfair with your life
But afterall it has blinkers on the eyes
Like an horse which drags itself forever
Without knowing what it drags
Toward the final paddock
Anyway its legs are already hurting

Some evenings, at a friend's house,
Drunken with tiredness and emptiness
Suddenly grabbed by the elation of the suicidal ones
You start yelling about being useful and pure
And to burn one's life in one's pipe
For default of another tobacco

Buddies pretend that those are drunken words
But they look at you with terror
Like you they see the truth about the state of the sick one
And the weird color of the sheets

The wife, one has chosen
Whom we do not love anymore
Whom we still love
On whom young people turn round in town
Without her believing in it
She listens and pushes back as much as she can
The door on that cold
Because for that business she is more advanced than you

She doesn't know if she still loves you
It does not matter
One has to put the machine back in one's old way
And start off again

Oh woman, Oh woman
Do not turn away from that man please
Let's go inside, Doctor
Let's go inside that house
Which will never be our house

Stop the car
I do not know where
But I hurt
Breathe the air coming from the native country

Vehicle stopped on the side of the road
Do you need help comrade
I have seen too many tired men
If I tell you: I am happy
Ah believe me
Would you have a grudge against me, Comrade
If I do not stop
I pass at top speed well protected by my young age
Doctor, hold the hand of that incomporable companion you have
Start the engine again, it'll be fine by driving quietly

Serge Reggiani - Venice is not in Italy

Original Title: "Venise n'est pas en Italie"
Text: Claude Lemesle
Year: 1977

You don't have enough money to take a plane or even a train
You wouldn't be able to offer her a one way trip to Melun
But you take her away
As you love her
On oceans of which the sailors
Have never seen the end
You have the sky that your windows have drawn
And the sun on a theater movie
But you don't care
But you are rich
You are since you love one another

Venice isn't in Italy
Venice it's at anyone's place
Make love to her in an attic
And make fun of the gondoliers
Venise is not where you believe it is
Venise today is at your place
It's where you go, it's anywhere you want
It's the place where you are happy

You aren't in that room a bit common
This evening you have a date on the canal
Fireworks
The small boat glides
You are going to see everything, discover everything
Included the Bridge of Sighs
It'll last a year or an eternity
The time for a god to come and tell you "enough sung"
Does it matter
It's the holidays
All that because you love one another

Venice isn't in Italy
Venice it's at anyone's place
Make love to her in an attic
And make fun of the gondoliers
Venise is not where you believe it is
Venise today is at your place
It's where you go, it's anywhere you want
It's the place where you are happy

Venice isn't in Italy
Venice it's at anyone's place
It's anywhere, it's important
But it's not any time
Venise it's when you see some sky
Run under cherry plum bridges
It's the other side of rainy mornings
It's the place where you are happy

Jacques Bertin - They lie down side by side

Original Title: "Ils s'allongent côte à côte"
Year: 1977

They lie down side by side,
Head turned toward the sky
Head turned toward the sky
Like they do for thirty years

Maybe they are already a little in the sky
Because of the peace surrounding them
As if they were in a small boat
Hear turned toward the sky

Around the house, the Virginia creeper
That he had planted the first day
Carries them and protects them
Or it's the night which protects them
and which carries them

And it's as if the evening
And every evening
They were going away
Toward God maybe
Who is like some sort of estuary
More luminous than the night in the night.

Jean-Roger Caussimon - Girls like that

Original Title: "Des filles comm'ça"
Year: 1977

There are some girls like that
Who have the heart like an island

No need to be beautiful, don't dress in Sunday's clothes
Step forward into the sea, lie down on your back
Let yourself drift placid and float on your back
Shout "I am the drunken boat" of Arthur Rimbaud
I am not an happy person, life is a problem to me
Happiness is so far away, I have looked so much for it
I become an orphan if noone loves me
And a girl like that will come to fish you out

There are some girls like that
Who have the heart like an island
With some soft beaches
A semblance of rocks
To make everyone believe
That it's difficult
That it's difficult
To approach them

At her place a woodfire as soon as September ends
Sunshine in Spring and shadow in Summer
You'll be like a King in your robe
Which many others undoubtly wore before you
You'll be pampered without having anything to say
Nothing but love words where her first name sings
You'll have to prove her how much you desire her
And a girl like that will never say no.

There are some girls like that
Who have the heart like an island
With some soft beaches
A semblance of rocks
To make everyone believe
That it's difficult
That it's difficult
To approach them

That daily love and of every second
Will give you the idea that there must exist
Some girls to love at every corner of the world
Then you'll go away enamoured of freedom
Then another guy will come to live with her
But for how long? Maybe for ever
With every lover the hope is new
And a girl like that dreams of a single love.

There are some girls like that
Who have the heart like an island
With some soft beaches
A semblance of rocks
To make everyone believe
That it's difficult
That it's difficult
To approach them

Malicorne - The Deserter - The Leave

Traditional song
Original Title: "Le Congé (Le Déserteur)"
Year: 1977

It's been eight years that I am in the army
Without ever having receveid my leave
It's been eight years I am in the army
Without ever having received my leave

The desire took hold of me
to come back to the country without leave
to come back to the country without leave

On my way, made a sad encounter
Three grenadiers captured me and took me away
On my way, made a sad meeting
Three grenadiers captured me and took me away

Have attached my handcuffs nastily
Right to Bordeaux in prison lead me
Right to Bordeaux in prison lead me

Ah, does one have for the love of a brunette
To be reduced to those cursed dungeons!
Ah, does one have for the love of a brunette
To be reduced to those cursed dungeons!

To be reduced to sleeping on straw
To eat black bread and drink nothing else but water
To eat black bread and drink nothing else but water

But when the beauty heard those words
But nights and days goes find her lover
But when the beauty heard those words
But nights and days goes find her lover

Telling him "My lover, take courage"
She will save you, the one who loves you so much
She will save you, the one who loves you so much

I will go talk, to your Captain
Your captain, your commandant as well
I will go talk, to your Captain
Your captain, your commandant as well

While telling them to soften your sentence
For some money, give me back my lover
For some money, give me back my lover

Keep, beauty, your gold and your money
To make war have it at their leisure
Keep, beauty, your gold and your money
To make war have it at their leasure

I have to be court-martialled
And then after, I'll be put to death
And then after, I'll be put to death

The one who will kill me, it'll be my comrade
The one who will kill me, it'll be my comrade
He will blindfold me with a blue handkerchief
He will make me die without making me suffer too much

Malicorne - Victor Hugo - The Timpanist's Bride

Original Title: "La fiancée du timbalier"
Text: Victor Hugo
Year: 1977

My Lord the duke of Brittany
Has, for the murderous combats,
Summoned from Nantes to Mortagne
In the plain and on the mountain
All of his barrons and vassals' warriors.

Those are barrons whose coat of arms
deck out forts encircled with a pit
Valiant knights aged in the alarms
Squires, men at arms;
One of them is my fiancé

He has left for Aquitaine
As a timpanist and yet
He is taken for a captain
Just seeing his haughty look
and his pourpoint of dazzling gold!

I have told to our abbot: - Your grace,
Pray well for all our soldiers!
And, like it's known he wants it,
I have burned three candles of wax
On the shrine of Saint Gildas.

He is due today from the war
to come back with my lord;
It's not a common lover anymore
I raise a forehead formerly lowered
And my pride is happiness!

The triumphant duke brings us back
His flag in the camps crumpled
Come all under the old gate
To see the sparkling escort go through
And the prince and my fiancé!

My sisters, so slow to attire yourself in
Come see near my victor
Those gleaming kettledrums
Those under his always trembling hand
Ring and make the heart spring up!

Come most of all to see himself
Under the coat I have embroidered.
How beautiful he will be! It's him I love!
He wears like a diadem
His helmet flooded with horse hair!

On two ranks the procession ripples
First the pikemen marching heavily
Then, under the banner being unfurled
The barrons, in silk robe,
With their velvet hats

Here comes the chasubles of the priests
The heralds on a white steed.
All of them, in memory of the ancesters,
Bear the escutcheon of their masters
Painted on their steel corselet

Admire the persian armor
Of the templars, feared by hell;
And, under the lengthy partisan
The archers arrived from Lausanne
Dressed with buffalo, armed with iron.

The duke is not far, his banners
floats among the knights;
A few captive ensigns
Shameful, pass the last ones...
My sisters! Here comes the timpanists...

She says and her wandering sight
Plunges in the squeezed ranks
Then in the indifferent crowd
She fell cold and dieing...
The timpanists were gone past.

Jacques Bertin - Notebook

Original Title: "Carnet"
Year: 1977

There are many deads in yesterday's newspaper
And a lot of misery but everywhere
Lots of people who remain indifferent
The next day everything seems already less serious

I wouldn't like that you grow old too fast
Before we would have had the time to stop
And to tell each each other: we are happy
that we would look at each other one more time
In the mirror in love with smiles
That I find you beautiful one more time
I still want time to offer
your body to passing gazes
People in passing take this woman
Own her. One day she won't be anything no more
Show yourself naked, dance for them
Own her so that she remains
And remains the print of her fingers in the ground

I feel now that everything is going a bit faster
Yet we were barely thirty year old
I stop and I look at you
Have I enjoyed you enough?
I stop the world and I look
Because it's more than ever time today to live
I look for to writing more and more simply
I am less concerned with rhymes and rythms
Because it's more than ever time today to live
To repulse the door that someone is closing on us
ineluctably

In yesterday's newspaper many dead
And then everywhere many indifferent people
We are too few to watch
We hold the lamp turned on
We push the sleep back with all our strength
And the lamp makes our eyes bright

We hold the lamp turned on
We do not grow old.

Jacques Brel - Jaurès

Translated for the 100th year of the assassination of Jean Jaurès.

Year: 1977

They were worn up at fifteen years old
They were finishing while beginning
The twelve months were named december
What kind of life did our grand parents have?
Between the absinth and the high masses
They were old before being,
Fifteen hours a day, the body on a leash,
Leaves to the face an ash like complexion.
Yes our Sir, yes our kind Master

Why did they kill Jaurès?
Why did they kill Jaurès?

One can not say they were slaves
But to say that they have lived
When you start defeated like that
It's hard to come out of the enclave
And though hope was florishing
In the dreams which were going up to the eyes
Of the few who were refusing
to crawl until the old age
Yes our kind Master, yes our Sir

Why did they kill Jaurès?
Why did they kill Jaurès?

If by misfortune they survived
It was to go to war
It was to end up at war
Under the orders of some swordsman
Who was demanding half-heartedly
That they go open in the field of horror
Their twenties which didn't have the chance to be born
And they died in full fear
All miserable, yes our kind Master
Covered with field horsetails, yes our Sir.
Ask yourself pretty youth,
The time of the shadow of a memory,
The time of the blow of a sigh,

Why did they kill Jaurès?
Why did they kill Jaurès?

Jacques Brel - The F...

Original Title: "Les F..."
Year: 1977

The Flemish nationalists! comical song

Misters the Flemish nationalists
I have two words to laugh at you.
It has been too long
that you are making me fry
Blowing up your own ass
To become busses.
Here you are acrobats
But really nothing more.

Nazis during the wars
Catholics in between.
You oscillate endlessly
From the rifle to the missal.
Your gazes are distant
Your humor is drained
Even though there are streets in Ghent
That piss in both languages.
You see when I think about you
I like that nothing gets lost
Mister the Flemish Nationalists:
Fuck you.

You make Flanders dirty
But Flanders is judging you
See the North Sea
She ran away from Bruges.
Stop getting on
my old balls
With your Flemish Italo-spanish art
You are so so
much heavy
so that during evening of storms
some Educated chinese people
Ask me where I am from.
I answer, tired
and tears to the teeth
"Ik ben van Luxembourg"*

And if to young ladies
you dare singing a flemish song
They fly away while dreaming
to the rose and white birds.

And I forbid you
To hope that ever in London
Under the rain one could
believe you are English.
And I forbid you
In New York or Milano
To eructate, my lords
in any other way than in flemish.
You won't look dumb
Really not dumb at all.

And I forbid myself
To say that I don't care.
And I forbid you
To force our children
Who never bothered you
To bark in flemish.
And if my brothers remain silent
Too bad for them girls.
I sing, persist and sign:
My name is Jacques Brel

* "I am from Luxembourg" in Flemish

Jacques Bertin - Colline

Colline is a female name but it also means "Hill".
Year: 1977

It was just after the very big heat waves that year
when we were looking for a new housing
In the meanwhile we were at a friend's home who was beautiful
but we weren't making love and undoubtedly it was due to the weather
or it was that we weren't home and you were surprised at this
But I knew that man is a more fragile engineering
than the complicated devices that can be seen in the silent museums
and which are oscillating without a noise and are mysteriously useful

You just were starting to work again and you were struggling
We were just passing at Colline's place who was beautiful
sometimes we caught her naked and we were looking at her
lovingly in her sleep and all three we liked one another
But we weren't making love and maybe out of shyness
because it'd have started up one of those turned off device somewhere.
Although we were loving one another, things are so simple
and those devices that malfunction for the slightest thing are not complicated

I don't know. Oh, I do not know why I'm writing all this
To set up a net accross my life that is taking me away
It was hot in that appartment, we weren't breathing anymore
we were in an elevated interlude of a building in our life
One day, I tell myself, maybe we will finally have an house
I do not understand those people who can settle anywhere
when I look tirelessly with the closed head you know
for the place where I'll find my childhood back

On the head of the island between the two branches
and the years passing I would see them coming
and muddle up with my past, like in the whirlpools of the Loire
the water and then the water lazily will go die in the sands.

Do you believe that one day we will really have a house?
With a good friend and we will be able to have the strength to love each others.
We will love her without fear, remember it, it'll be even more beautiful
and more pure than a couple even like both of us.

It'll be like a meadow in the shadowed part of summer, around the evening
You won't be scared of thunderstorm nor of yourself especially
In the grass those useless devices of the museums would have been arranged
with pendulums, counterweights, copper machineries, bearings

And there would float one of those melodious songs that our parents were singing
Oh tell me, do you think we will be able to make this party, remember it.

Jacques Bertin - Threat

Original Title: "Menace"
Year: 1977

In an air-conditioned office maybe there would have been
a failure in the calculation of the basic goods count
or a disease thrown in the food chain
by a powerless accountant

An almost minimal damage would be enough or that breaks
an extremely flexible rod or a mirror.
A sign in the sky would be enough, a motionless bird
or next to nothing different in the intimacy of the air.

It'll be around noon, there will be a big silence
and right away there will be a long shout of a woman
Like coming out of a damaged car in a rainy decor
Your death would have been announced on the television.

It'd suddenly and simply be too late
Too late for everything, for the anger and for the scream.
Too late for the flight and too late for the revolt
Too late for the last boat and for the fight and for life.

Light is going out everywhere, the phones are ringing.
A nice poisonous wind is blowing in the deserted hospitals.
You find yourselves affected in clusters and you die.
An uncontrollable reaction propagates a gas in the green sky.

The misery lifts its muzzle you throw yourselves on the roads.
For the big scene of exodus which this time will end badly.
There are no more shelter at the end of the road, no more road,
no more front direction, no more march to follow, no more directions.

Ah you are going faster and faster most probably
To Lyon or to New York in big impassive planes
Thrown from aseptic chapels by fabricated voices
Misery you visit it in clubs in exotic countries.

In all the bourgeois flats that have the look of theatre stages
where everything goes through the filter of velvet and of convention.
We handle the silverware, the witticism, the capital
and the concept and most of all without ever almost raise the voice.

The bourgeoisie ruling crêpe paper on its realm.
Sure of itself in its technology, of its cloth ears
We don't know really where we are going but no matter
when you get hold of the role you improvise and Godspeed!

The words are empty that you are reciting. The theater
gives in the rigging on the sky from above.
It's a sort of ghost ship that has in its holds
a few billions of negros that are scared

Fake world, Oh world without reason, fragile world!
Oh that lives incredibly from its fragility!
That finds in its flight a sort of relative balance
And the abyss like a belly attracts the mad ones who are going to sell their souls there.

Captive world. Oh world without love, fragile world!
Good people who let yourself be drained.
I want to spread terror like a patient tide.
There is little time left to save the world and save you.

There is little time left for the holly wrath.
I see you like a horse with broken legs
Mad eyes, looking to get up, looking for help
in the empty sky around him which turns and in his head impaled.

People Ah you do not believe much in love nor in insolence.
If I say people why are you turning round yourself?
Who is the one I'm designating with this term?
The revolt looks to you a business of fanatics or spoiled children.

But there is like a dirty disease in the joy
Like a trust crisis in the quality of tap water.
Maybe the fruits of the heart are treated, a doubt will always remain.
Suddenly the suspicion is settling and here you are run through by fright.

Terror I want, terror I want to spread
like a contribution of blood in the tired body
Holy wars everywhere, you had been entrusted with weapons
What have you done of them? Remember, what have you done of them?

Say, what have you done with the word that its a glowing ember?
You take it fully in your hand. You carry the fire.
In the exhausted lands, in the bad wounds,
In the bad sleeps or on the eyes of the people you want to love.

I'm going to carry the war in the papers to the old humanism,
Weary, becoming sloppy in the stagnant water of chronicles and marshes.
Little feudal lords, the parapet you certainly never pass the head through
We betray kindly behind the bags of letters to the Editor pilled up.

We need words carrier with steel tracks in the head
to lead in the valley that distraugth crowd of young people.
God protects them and God guides them and God loves them
They have made home the old world corrupted with a burning bush.

Words, to deal blows because it's high time, word.
The truth, the truth as if life depended upon it.
Word, to open a territory with fertile wounds.
O word! Before the season advances.

Tomorrow there is a virus manufactured by accident.
Boats not arriving anymore.
A bulb that snaps in the final control room.
A bomb too much in the central magma

I'm telling you it's time.
This world is in this notebook we are closing
with a weary gesture and that we are crushing like an heart
Look at your last beautiful magnificient plane taking off.

It's going to roam in the suburb of the "why how".
This world tell yourself we'll forget about it very quickly
Like in a block-calendar a number among a hundred.
This world is already nothing more but a miserable graphic

In which the eye and reason are looking for what one could see in it.
Now that the book is closing feel that major void.
The sky is deserted. The earth rustles with out of tune shouts.
Let rise here those that have the pioneer spirit in the head.
Everything will have to be restarted again from this evening on.

Les Ogres de Barback - Pierre Perret - At the Canal's cafe

Original Title: "Au Café du canal"
Text: Pierre Perret
Year: 1977

At the beautiful Rosette's, at the canal's cafe
On the lime trunk that shaded the ball
you could read under two intertwined hearts
"Here you may bring your kisses"

I, my kisses I had lost them
And I already believed that I had kissed everything
And I didn't know that you came over
and that your new mouth was papered with them
Fortune untill now hadn't smiled on me
Over my craddle the fairies weren't leaning much
And every time I fell on a nettle's square
There was a wasp to sting me in the neck

Though my luck today is here
Under the green arbour of your bent eyelashes
When you looked at me for the first time
My old freedom started to reel
We were alone in the world in this populous dance
And with a single hand I imprisoned your waist

Your breasts were pushing again the pleats of your blue bodice
They almost won the battle
I love the sky because it's in your eyes
I love the bird because he knows your name
I love your laugh and all those curious words
that you come whispering at the collar of my jacket

And I see again your hands crossed on your chest
Your clothes thrown on a chair at the bed's feet
Your poor heart was making small sardine's jumps
When I put my head against it
God, you thank God, that's all you!
But my love for you is far more strong
Could have God slept beside you
a whole night without touching your body.

At the beautiful Rosette's, at the canal's cafe
On the lime trunk that shaded the ball
you could read under two intertwined hearts
"Here you may bring your kisses"

Pierre Perret's version:

Jacques Brel - The Town Fell Asleep

Original Title: "La Ville s'endormait" Year: 1977

The town was falling asleep
And I'm forgetting its name
On the river upstream
A corner of sky was burning
The town was falling asleep
And I'm forgetting its name
And the night, little by little,
And the time stopped,
And my muddy horse,
And my tired body.
And the night, blue to blue,
And the water from a fountain
And a few shouts of hate
Poured by a few old men
on women older than them
whose body is dozing off.

The town was falling asleep
And I'm forgetting its name
On the river upstream
A corner of sky was burning
The town fell asleep
And I'm forgetting its name
And my horse who is drinking
And me looking at it
And my thirst making sure
That it's not noticed
And the fountain sings
And tireness stucks
Its knife in my back
And I play the one
Who is his own ruler
I'm expected somewhere
Like one waits for the King
But noone is waiting for me
I know since already
That you die from chance
By quickening your pace

The town was falling asleep
And I'm forgetting its name
On the river upstream
A corner of sky was burning
The town was falling asleep
And I'm forgetting its name
It's true that sometimes around the evening
The birds look like waves
And waves like birds
And men like laughs
And laughs like sobs
It's true that often
The sea disenchants itself
I mean by this
That it sings other songs
That those sung by the sea
In children's books
But women always
Only look alike to women
And among them the idiots
Only look alike to idiots
And I'm not quite sure
Unlike one is singing
That they are the future of men

The town was falling asleep
And I'm forgetting its name
On the river upstream
A corner of sky was burning
The town was falling asleep
And I'm forgetting its name
And you passed
Unknown young lady
Within an inch of being naked
Under the dansing linen

Jacques Brel - Orly

Original Title: "Orly"
Year: 1977

There are more than two thousand people
and I only see those two
Rain soldered them to one another, it seems.
There are more than two thousand people
and I only see those two
And I know that they are talking
He must tell her "I love you!"
She must tell him "I love you!"
I think they are busy not promising anything to one another.
Those two are too slean to be dishonest
There are more than two thousand people
and I only see those two
And suddenly, he cries
He cries hard
All surrounded as they are
by sweaty adipose
and hope guzzlers
pointing the nose at them.
But those two torn people
gorgeous from sorrow
abandon to dogs
the achievement of judging them

Life doesn't make gifts
And for God's sake, it's sad
Orly, on a Sunday,
With or Without Bécaud

And now they cry
I mean both of them
Earlier it was him
When I was saying "he"
As embedded as they are
they do not hear anything no more
but the sobs of the other one
And then
And then infinitely
Like two bodies that pray
infinitely slowly
Those two bodies part
And as they break up
Those two bodies tear each other
And I swear to you that they are screaming
And then, they pull themselves together
become one again
become the fire again
And then, tear each other again
Hold each other by the eyes
And then, while stepping back
like the sea recedes,
they consummate the farewell
He slobbers a few words
waves a vague hand
And suddenly, he runs
Runs without turning back
And then, he disapears
Eaten up by the stairs.

Life doesn't make gifts
And for God's sake, it's sad
Orly, on a Sunday,
With or Without Bécaud

And then, he disapears,
eaten up by the stairway
And she, she stays there,
Heart stretched to the sides, mouth opened
Without a shout, without a word
She knows of her death
She just crossed it
Here, she turns around
and turns around again
Her arms goes down to the ground
That's it! She is a thousand years old
The door is closed again
Here she is without light
She turns on herself
And already she knows
She'll always turn
She has lost men before
but there, she is losing love
Love told her
here comes the uselessness again
She'll live on projects
that will only wait
She is fragile again
Before being for sale
I'm here, I follow her
I don't dare anything for her
whom the crowd nibbles
like a mundane fruit.

Brel mentions Bécaud for his song about Orly's airport: Dimanche à Orly