Jean Ferrat - Aragon - I arrive where I am a stranger

Original Title: "J'arrive où je suis étranger"
Text: Louis Aragon
Year: 1994

Nothing is as precarious as living
Nothing is as passing as being
For frost, it's a bit like melting
And for the wind like being light
I arrive where I am a stranger

One day you pass the border
Where do you come from, but where are you going?
What matters tomorrow and what matters yesterday
The heart changes with the thistle
Everything is without rhyme or forgiveness

Brush your finger there on your temple
Touch childhood with your eyes
Better leave the lights low
The longer night suits us better
It is the bright day that is getting old

The trees are beautiful in autumn
But the child what has he become
I look at myself and I wonder
Of this unknown traveler
Of his face and his bare feet

Gradually you become silence
But not fast enough though
To not feel your dissimilarity
And on the yourself of yesteryear
Fall the dust of time

It takes a long time to age afterall
Causes the sand to leak through our fingers
It's like a cold water rising
It is like a shame that grows
A leather to shout for auction that we trim

It takes a long time to be a man, a thing
It takes a long time to give up everything
And do you feel the metamorphosis
That are happening inside of us
Making our knees slowly bend

Oh bitter sea, Oh deep sea
What is the time of your tides
How many years-seconds are required
For man to abjure man
Why, why those airs and graces

Nothing is as precarious as living
Nothing is as passing as being
For frost, it's a bit like melting
And for the wind like being light
I arrive where I am a stranger

All poems written by Louis Aragon

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?

Edith Piaf & Charles Dumont - The lovers...

Original Title: "Les amants"
Year: 1962

When the lovers will hear
This song
It's certain, my beauty,
It's certain
That they will cry...

They will listen to
The love words
That you were saying.
They will hear
Your love voice
When you loved me.
When you believed you loved me
That I loved you, that we were loving one another

When the lovers will hear
this song
It's certain, my beauty, (I love you so much)
It's certain (we love each other so much)
that they will cry... (...way more than before)

I still hear...I hear your laugh
When sometimes I was telling you:
"If one day...
...you did not love me anymore
If one day...
...we did not love one another anymore."
You answered: "It's impossible!"
And you laughed, you laughed.
Well, you see, you should not have laughed.

When the lovers will hear
This song
It's certain, my beauty, (I love you less)
It's certain (you love me less)
That they will cry...(we love each others less)

They will listen to
The love words
That you were saying.
They will hear
Your love voice
When you loved me.
When you believed you loved me
That I loved you, that we were loving one another

When the lovers will hear
This song
It's certain, my beauty, (I do not love you anymore)
It's certain (You do not love me anymore)
That they will cry...(We do not love each other anymore)

Jacques Brel - The tender hearts

Original Title: "Les coeurs tendres"
Year: 1967

Some have the heart so broad
That you come in without knocking
Some have the heart so broad
That you only see half of it

Some have the heart so frail
That you could break it with a finger
Some have the heart too frail
to live like you and me

They have plenty of flowers in the eyes
The eyes just above the fear
For fear of missing the time
That leads to Paris

Some have the heart so tender
That there lays the tits
Some have the heart too tender
Half men and half angels

Some have the heart so vast
That they are always on a trip
Some have the heart too vast
To do without mirages

They have plenty of flowers in the eyes
The eyes just above the fear
For fear of missing the time
That leads to Paris

Some have the heart outside
And can't do anything else but to offer it
The heart so much outside
That everyone makes use of it

That one has the heart outside
And so frail and so tender
That be damned the dead trees
that would not hear it

Has plenty of flowers in the eyes
The eyes just above the fear
For fear of missing the time
That leads to Paris

Léo Ferré - Verlaine - Oh sad, sad was my soul.

Original Title: "Ô triste, triste était mon âme"
Text: Paul Verlaine
Year: 1964

Oh sad, sad was my soul
Because, because of a woman

I did not console myself
Even though my heart has gone away

Even though my heart, even though my soul
Had fled far away from that woman

I did not console myself
Even though my heart has gone away

And my heart, my too sensitive heart
Said to my soul: Is it possible?

Is it possible? - was it -
This proud exile, this sad exile?

My soul said to my heart: Do I know
Myself what this trap wants from us

To be present although exiled
Even though gone so far

Oh sad, sad was my soul
Because, because of a woman

Another version:

Monique Morelli - Villon - Epitaph (Ballad of the hangmen)

Original Title: "Epitaphe (Ballade des pendus)"
Text: François Villon (XVth Century)
Year: 1974, 1968 (Reggiani's reading)

Brothers human who after us live
Do not have the hearts hardened against us
Because, if pity of us poors have
God would rather have mercy of you
You see us here tied up by five or six
As of the flesh, that we have fed too much,
It's devoured and roten for a long time
And we, the bones, become ash and powder
Of our misfortune let noone laugh about:
But pray God that all of us want to absolve!

If brothers we call you, you do not have
Disdain from it, although we have been slayed
By Justice. However you know
That all men do not have the mind go stale
Pardon us, as we are chilled to the bone
Toward the Son of the Virgin Marie
Let his grace not be dried up for us
Preserving us from the infernal thunderbolt
We are dead, do not harass our soul
But pray God that all of us want to absolve!

The rain has soaked us and washed us
And the sun dried us out and blackened
Magpies, crows have our eyes hollowed out
And teared off the beard and the eyebrows
Never a moment are we sitting:
Then here and there, like the wind varies
At his will, endlessly, sweeps us along,
More pecked by birds than a thimble
So do not be of our brotherhood
But pray God that all of us want to absolve!

Prince Jesus, who on everything has control
Be careful that Hell does not rule over us
To him have nothing to do or settle with
Men here have no mockery
But pray God that all of us want to absolve!

Serge Reggiani's version:

Monique Morelli - Villon - Rondeau (Death, I appeal against your harshness)

Original Title: "Rondeau (Mort, j'appelle de ta rigueur)"
Text: François Villon (XVth Century)
Year: 1974

Death,
I appeal against your harshness
which has ravished me my mistress
And is not assuaged yet
If you do not hold me in languidness:

Since,
had nor strength nor vigour
But what harm was she doing to you alive,
Death ?
But what harm was she doing to you alive,

Two we were
and had only one heart;
If it's dead, no choice but to deviate,
indeed, or for me to live lifeless
Like the images, by heart,
Death !