Edith Piaf - My legionary

Original Title: "Mon légionnaire"
Text: Raymond Asso
First sung by Marie Dubas
Year: 1936

He had big eyes, very clear,
where sometimes lightning passed
Like in the sky the thunderstorms passes

He was covered in tattoos
That I never really well understood
His neck wore "Not seen not taken"
On his heart one could read "Noone"
On his right arm one word "Resound"

I do not know his name
I do not know anything about him
He loved me the whole night
My legionary

And leaving me to my destiny
He left in the morning full of light
He was thin, he was beautiful
He smelled good the warm sand
My legionary
There was sun on his forehead
That were putting light in his blond hair

Happiness lost, happiness fled
Still I think about that night
And the desire for his skin gnaws at me
Sometimes I cry then I think
That when I was over his heart
I should have shouted my happiness
But I did not dare to tell him anything
I was scared to see him smile

He was found in the desert
He had his beautiful eyes opened
In the sky clouds were passing
He showed his tattoos while smiling
Showing his neck "Not seen not taken"
Showing his heart "Here noone"
He did not know, I forvige him

Though I was dreaming that destiny
Would bring one fine morning
My legionary
That we would go away far
Both of us
In some marvellous country
Full of light

He was thin, he was beautiful
He was put under the warm sand
My legionary
There was sun on his forehead
That were putting light in his blond hair

Marie Dubas' version:

Jacques Bertin - I have not much to say

Original Title: "J'ai peu de choses à dire"
Year: 1974

I have not much to say, afterall
I am not looking for much
And everything else it's a clothing over me
More or less tailored

I can well share your combat, your certainties,
blotting paper
The ill, mine, is elsewhere
A lantern that remained lit

I write, my wife sleeps
I gather a meager luggage
some meager goods
Some vague ideas
Attempts of notions

All what I subscribe to
is that in good understanding
One has to admit
remains of your wardrobes,
ideas of revolution

What do I have that belongs to me?
My mother who washes on mondays
When she cries it's because her eyes are full of soap
The linen dries, the kitchen is wet
The radio covers the shouts of the kids

I have nothing but a banal childhood
Like a cardboard schoolbag
Oh the warm apartments
The beautiful ladies
Men who talk very well
and read progressive newspapers

As if the world belonged to you
Oh young men of means
You are the best up unto the revolt
Oh impeccable rebels

What do I have that belongs to me?
The silence of the children of the poors
And two or three details to tell to the buddies
The days of abandon

A sunday morning during the winter
One day when I was a kid
It was warm, outside I hear the dynamo pass

What is it? My possession.
What can I put in the balance?
A memory devoid of interest
A Good Friday night We were going
to drink a 25 francs coffee
On a countryside table

Downtown some gentlemen and ladies
talk about the poets
with some deportment
What do I have to say?
Noone gave me the right to speak

I have the coat pierced to the winds
to the stars of the revolution
I am on my bicycle
I come home by the white cross
Oh my father and my mother
Leave the garage lit
I come back home

Boris Vian - The Deserter

Original Title: "Le Déserteur"
Year: 1955, 1964 (Reggiani's version)

Mister the President
I am writing you a letter
That you will maybe read
If you have the time

I've just received
My military papers
To go to war
Before wedsneday evening

Mister the President
I don't want to do it
I am not on earth
To kill poor people

It's not to make you mad
I have to tell you
I have made my decision
I am going to desert

Since I am born
I have seen my dad die
I have seen my brothers go away
And cry my children

My mother suffered so much
That she is in her grave
And does not care of the bombs
And does not care of the worms

When I was a prisonner
I have been robbed of my wife
I have been robbed of my soul
And of all my dear past

Tomorrow early morning
I will close my door
At the nose of the years bygone
I will go on the roads

I will beg my life
On the roads of France
From Britany to Provence
And I will tell people

Refuse to obey
Refuse to do it
Don't go to war
Refuse to go away

If one has to give his blood
Go give yours
You have an holier-than-thou attitude*
Mister the President

If you pursue me
Warn your gendarmes²
That I won't have any weapon
And that they will be able to shoot

*You are a good apostle is the word by word translation
²gendarmes are policemen belonging to the army branch

Serge Reggiani live:

Serge Reggiani's version:

Marcel Mouloudji's version:

Monique Morelli - Louis Aragon - An October tune

Original Title: "Un air d'Octobre"
Text: Louis Aragon
Year: 1966

A tune like a vast train
A tune which never ends
An October tune, a romance
Softer than the month of may
A tune that always starts again

Your eyes have the horizon sickness
Crazy the one who finds azure blue enough
To whom the sky isn't a prison
One has to love with immoderation
Reason is not enough

Beautiful autumn with velvet hands
It's the song that is never sung
It's the song of our love
It's the song of the tea-roses
Which heart have the color of the day

A tune like a vast train
A tune which never ends
An October tune, a romance
Softer than the month of may
A tune that always starts again

Is there a deep enough sob
To tell the physical deserts
Alike to the circles one makes in the water
Are the words matching the music
Of the long desire in the heart enclosed

A tune, Elsa, of dementia
A tune which never ends
An October tune, a romance
Softer than the month of may is
A tune like a vast train

A tune like a vast train
A tune which never ends
An October tune, a romance
Softer than the month of may
A tune that always starts again

All poems written by Louis Aragon

La Tordue - Moon

Original Title: "Lune"
Year: 1998

You have the age of your craters
Oh old moon
Midwife² of the universe
If there is one
You rule over the flow of the seas
And over Neptune
What are you hiding in your behinds?
Some fortune?
Be wary of those who planted
Into your dunes
Their warlike banners
Brothel with feathers
The vanity of worms
Inopportune
Of those big beer drinking feet
Without any embarrassment in the slightest

Let the one who said
Idiot like the moon
Go to hell.
And if to each one his own
It's you I prefer
I like at night and without costume
Of sea bathing
To swim in your reflections of foam
In your light
As if I was flying at
a loved one
Made of an enchantment of lagoons
of winter circuses

Burning with hopes to see your mists
That are thirst-quenching
The nectar of the wine we inhale
When comes brumaire
My soul stroll in there as a
Deleterious funambulist
That the song free like the air of an
Ephemeral rose
In curls of incense which smoke
in the skies
To you, muses among all, Oh moon
Let it be offered to you

Let the one who said
Idiot like the moon
Go to hell.
And if to each one his own
It's you I prefer

² in french midwife is the said "Wise-woman"

Georges Brassens - Happy the one who like Ulysses

Original Title: "Heureux qui comme Ulysse"
Music from the movie with Fernandel.
The first sentence comes from a sonnet by Joachim Du Bellay

Year: 1970

Happy the one who, like Ulysses,
Has made a beautiful trip
Happy the one who, like Ulysses,
Has seen hundred landscapes
And then has found back
After many crossings
The country of the green years

By a little summer morning
When the sun is singing in your heart
How beautiful freedom is
Freedom
When we are feeling better here than elsewhere
When a friend makes happiness
How beautiful freedom is
Freedom

With the sun and the wind
With the rain and the fine weather
We were living happily
My horse, my Provence and I
My horse, my Provence and I

Happy the one who, like Ulysses,
Has made a beautiful trip
Happy the one who, like Ulysses,
Has seen hundred landscapes
And then has found back
After many crossings
The country of the green years

By a little summer morning
When the sun is singing in your heart
How beautiful freedom is
Freedom
When hardships are over
When a friend dries up your tears
How beautiful freedom is
Freedom

Lashed by the sun and wind
Lost in the middle of the ponds
We will live happily
My horse, my Provence and I
My horse, my Provence and I

Barbara - Incestuous loves

Original Title: "Amours incestueuses"
Year: 1972

My love, my beauty, my king
My child whom I love
My love, my beauty, my law
My other self
You are the setting sun
fell on earth
You are my last spring
My god, how I love you

I had already done my way
I was walking toward the silence
With quite some insolence
I did not want anyone no more
I was going forward in an autumn
My last autumn maybe

I did not desire anything nomore
But like a miracle
You appeared in my light

And you my love, my king
Shattering my borders
And you my setting sun,
My sky and my earth
You gave me your twenties
From the heart of yourself
You are my last spring
My god, how I love you

I always thought that loves,
The most beautiful loves,
Were the incestuous loves
There was in your eyes
There was in your eyes
A luminous tenderness

You wanted to live with me
The most beautiful loves
The loves that are the most beautiful

I reopened my house
Wide my windows
And I crowned your forehead
I kissed your mouth
And you my adolescent
You, my tear,
You laid your twenties
To my forties

But barely are they born
That they are already condemned
The loves of desperation
For to never become tarnished
That diamond that was given to us
I burnt our cathedral

The most beautiful loves,
The loves that are the most beautiful
Are the incestuous loves

Farewell, my love, my king
My child whom I love
Later you will understand it
When one loves one has to
Leave at the most beautiful I think
And hide one's sorrow

My love, my child king
I go away and I love you
This is my truth
From the heart of myself

Live version: