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

Hélène Martin - The man sentenced to death

Original Title: "Le Condamné à mort"
Text: Jean Genet (1942)
Year: 1961

On my neck without armor and without hate, my neck
Let my hand lighter and more solemn than a widow
brush under my collar, without your heart to be moved
Let your teeth lay their wolf's smile

Oh come, my beautiful sun, Oh come my Spanish night,
Come in my eyes that will be dead tomorrow
Come, open my door, bring me your hand
Lead me far from here to wander in our mind

The sky can awake, the stars florish
Nor the flowers sigh, and of the meadows the black grass
welcome the dew where the morning is going to drink
The church tower can ring: I alone will die.

Oh come my sky of rose, Oh my blond basket!
Visit in your night your man sentenced to death.
Tear your flesh away, kill, climb, bite,
but come! Lay your cheek against my round head

We hadn't finished to talk about love
We hadn't finished to smoke our gitanes
We may wonder why the courts sentence
An assassin so beautiful that he makes the day grow pale

Love come on my mouth ! Love open your doors!
Cross the corridors, come down, walk lightly,
Fly in the stairs, more supple than a shepherd
More carried by the air than a dead leave's flight.

Oh go through the walls: if you have to walk on the edge
of the roofs, of the oceans: Cover yourself with light,
make use of threat, make use of prayer
But come, oh my frigate, one hour before my death.

Marc Ogeret's version (1970):

Monique Morelli - Aragon - Elsa's hands

Original Title: "Les Mains d'Elsa"
Text: Louis Aragon (1963)
Year: 1966

Give me your hands for the anxiety
Give me your hands of which I've dreamt so much
Of which I've dreamt so much in my loneliness
Give me your hands so that I'm saved.

When I take them at my own trap
of palm and fear, of haste and emotion
When I take them like a water of snow
that melts from everywhere in my own hands

Will you ever know what goes through me,
What overwhelms me and what invades me
Will you ever know what pierces me,
What I betrayed when I flinched

What the deep language says that way
That mute way of speaking of animal senses
Without mouth and without eyes, mirror without image
That simmer of loving that has no words

Will you ever know what the fingers think
of a prey held a moment between them.
Will you ever know what their silence,
a flash, would have known of unknown

Give me your hands for my heart to form there
for the world to go quiet there at least a moment
Give me your hands for my soul to sleep there
For my soul to sleep there eternally.

Marc Ogeret's version:

All poems written by Louis Aragon

Jacques Bertin - Luc Bérimont - Madam, at midnight (Christmas)

Original Title: "Madame à minuit (Noël)"
Text: Luc Bérimont
Music: Orchestre Jacques Mallebay
Year: 1962 (Léo Ferré's), 1982 (Bertin's)

Madam, at midnight, do you think we are still up ?
Madam, at midnight, do you think we are laughing ?
The wind of winter shouts in my ears
Land of Christmas, so white and alike
So poor, so old and so hard as well.

At the end of the night, the farms are dozing.
Padlocks drawed on the wine's flower
But the fire's flower ferments there and keeps watch
Like the sun at the hollow of the mills
Like the sun at the hollow of the mills

At the frozen streams, the stone is ready to split
In cold weather, there are no mad people anymore
The hour of midnight, that hour when we sing
will sting my heart way better than holly
will sting my heart way better than holly

I had countless loves and friends
Plaited laughs at the summer's sky
Then, here I'm alone, poking shadows
The winter's cartage took everything away
The winter's cartage took everything away

Why this Christmas, why those lights
Nothing else came but tears
I shan't bite in the bitter orange again
And the memory of you tears my heart
And the memory of you tears my heart

Madam, at midnight, do you think we are still up ?
Madam, at midnight, do you think we are laughing ?
The wind of winter shouts in my ears
Christmas land, so white and alike
So poor, so old and so hard as well.

Marc Ogeret's version:

Léo Ferré's version:

Georges Brassens - Aragon - There are no happy love.

Original Title: "Il n'y a pas d'amour heureux"
Text: Louis Aragon (1943)
Year: 1953

Nothing is ever a given to man
Neither his strength, nor his weakness, nor his heart.
and when he thinks opening his arms
His shadow is the one of a cross
And when he wants to hug his happiness, he crushes it.
His life is a weird and painful divorce

There are no happy love

His life it looks like those weaponless soldiers
Who had been dressed for another destiny
What good would it do them to get up in the morning.
Them who you find in the evening disarmed, unsure
Say those words "My life" and hold back your tears


There are no happy love

My beautiful love, my dear love, my tearing
I carry you inside of me like a wounded bird
And those there, unknowing, are watching us walk by
Repeating after me those words I've weaved
And which for your big eyes died right away.

There are no happy love

Time to learn how to live, it's already too late
Let our heart cry at night in unison
What is needed of regrets to pay a shiver
What is needed of misfortune for a single song
What is needed of sobs for a guitar tune

There are no happy love

Hélène Martin's version:

Barbara's version:

Marc Ogeret's version:

Jacques Bertin - Louis Aragon - Now that the youth

Original Title: "Maintenant que la jeunesse"
Text: Louis Aragon
Music: L. Leonardi
Year: 1966 (Morelli's version), 1982 (Bertin's version)

Now that the youth
goes out on the blue windows
Now that the youth
Unconscious, betrayed me

Now that the youth
You remember, remember it
Now that the youth
Sings the spring to others
Now that the youth
Turns away its lilac eyes

Now that the youth
Is not here or there anymore
Now that the youth
On other light paths

Now that the youth
Follows a foreign cloud
Now that the youth
Ran away, generous thief
Leaving me my right of primogeniture
And the silver of my hair.

It's a fine day as to not believe in it
It's a fine day like never
What a weather, what a weather witout memory
One does not know how to see anymore
nor to get up nor to sit down
It's a fine day like never

It's an unnatural weather
Like the sky in paintings
Like the oblivion of tortures
It's a fine day like never

Fresh, like water under the row
A weather strong like a woman
A weather to damn one's soul
It's a fine day like never

A weather to laugh and run
A weather to not die
A weather to fear for the worst
It's a fine day like never

Monique Morelli's version:

Marc Ogeret's version:

Hélène Martin's version:

Les Compagnons de la chanson's version:



All poems written by Louis Aragon