Charles Dumont - The prodigal son

Original title: "Le fils prodigue"
Year: 1970

You can sleep without anguish
He is going away and it's for tomorrow
An angel died, an angel passes
He is fed up with your mornings
The youngest of the family
The most tender, the most distant
The one who pleased to your daughter
The one who risks it all
The good for nothing

It does not matter how we travel
Boat, plane, pavot flower
To leave is always an illusion
Maybe but it is so beautiful

You didn't like this young man
With hair too short or too long
Thief of hearts, thief of apples
He is going away. What a blessing
But he is going to pick up stars
Which will florish your skies of beds
To you who stay in the hold
And do not dare to pay the price

It does not matter how we travel
Boat, plane, pavot flower
To leave is always an illusion
Maybe but it is so beautiful

Undoubtly, luck and glory
Will sow flowers under his steps
Unless that, from dreams to unfortunate events
He gets lost, he drowns himself
Whether he is in the bed of a queen
Whether he makes a last circle in the water
Whether he wins or loses his sorrow
His destiny is one of the most beautiful

The end of the journey does not matter
The name of the hero does not matter
The one who carries mirages
Is a flower to your hats
Is a flower to your hats

Léo Ferré - The madness

Original title: "La folie"
Year: 1970

Van Gogh's chair where you do not sit
Vincent's shoes which you do not put on
The ear of that guy who does not listen to you anymore
Those crows in the wheat of a lost canvas

I do not stop anymore when I see madness
I run her errands and sleep in her bed

The tears of that tree worried in the forest
What kind of wood was Vincent's chair?
The sheeps of the street hide in scarves
Workers change tune without stopping work

I do not stop anymore when I see madness
I run her errands and sleep in her bed

The steps of that child in the hell of the Faculty
Her sex and her virtue, her pill and her stage fright
When vertigo penetrates and overtakes her
Under the double and iced eye of an old prostitute's mirror

It's at that moment that I lose madness
And that I stay alone with my madman's eyes

Léo Ferré - It's great

Original title: "C'est extra"
Year: 1969

A leather dress like a spindle
That would be hot unintentionally
And inside, like a sailor
A girl who sways an english tune
It's great
The Moody Blues singing the night
Like some satin of a married's white
And in the harbor of this night
A girl who sways and comes to berth*

It's great
It's great
It's great
It's great

Some hair falling like the evening
And some music at the bottom of the loins
That jazz jazzing in the dark
And that ache that feels good
It's great
Those hands playing some rainbow
On the guitar of life
And then those shouts raising to the sky
Like a shining cigarette

It's great
It's great
It's great
It's great

Some stockings holding high up
Like the strings of a violin
And that flesh troubled by
The bow that runs my song
It's great
And under the barely closed veil
That tuft of black jésus
Streaming down in its craddle
Like a swimmer noone expects anymore

It's great
It's great
It's great
It's great

A leather dress like an oversight
That would be hot unintentionally
And inside, like a grey morning,
A girl swaying and keeping quiet
It's great
The Moody Blues who do not care
That amp not meaning anything no more
And in the music of the silence
A girl who sways and comes dying

It's great
It's great
It's great
It's great

*: To berth in French uses the same verb as to wet, originates from wetting the anchor used in a different context here.

Jacques Bertin - The child was coughing on the other side of the wall

Original Title: "L'enfant toussait de l'autre côté du mur"
Year: 1975

The child was coughing on the other side of the wall, they were fine
They had done everything that had to be done
They even had some times left
Him, had picked up a book, he didn't feel like going out
He found himself growing old and feeling good
He desired her but how to know?
Maybe she was distracted, he didn't dare
She was pacing in the house. She didn't dare

Serge Reggiani - Moustaki - My loneliness

Original Title: "Ma solitude"
Text: Georges Moustaki
Year: 1967

For having slept so often
With my loneliness
I almost made a friend out of her,
A sweet habit

She never leaves me for a second
Faithful like a shadow
She followed me here and there
To the four corners of the earth

Oh no, no, no, I'm never alone
With my loneliness

When she is at the hollow of my bed
She takes all the space
And we spend long nights
Both facing each other

I do not know up to where
this accomplice will go
Will I have to grow a taste for it
Or will I have to react

Oh no, no, no, I'm never alone
With my loneliness

Through her I have learned as much
Than I have shed tears
If sometimes I repudiate her
Never does she disarm

And if I prefer the love
Of another cortesan
She'd be at my last day
My last companion

Oh no, no, no, I'm never alone
With my loneliness.

No, no, no, no I'll never be alone
With my loneliness.

Moustaki's version:

Bourvil - The tenderness

Original Title: "La tendresse"
Text: Noël Roux
Music: Hubert Giraud
Year: 1963

One can live without wealth
Almost without a penny
Lords and princesses
There are not many left
But to live without tenderness
One could not
No, no, no, no
One could not

One can live without glory
Which does not prove anything
Be unknown in history
And find himself fine with it
But to live without tenderness
It's out of the question
No, no, no, no
It's out of the question

What a sweet weakness
What a pretty feeling
That need for tenderness
Which comes when we are born
Really, really, really

Work is necessary
But if one must stay
Weeks without doing anything
Well, one gets used to it
But to live without tenderness
Time feels slow
Slow, slow, slow, slow
Time feels slow

In the fire of youth
Pleasures are born
And love makes prowesses
To dazzle us
Yes but without tenderness
Love would be nothing
No, no, no, no
Love would be nothing

When merciless life
Falls down on you
We are nothing more than a pour devil
Crushed and disappointed
Then without tenderness
Of an heart supporting us
No, no, no, no
We would not go any further

A child kissing us
Because we make him happy
All our sorrows fade away
We become teary eyed
My God, my God, my God

In your immense wisdom
Immense fervour
Make it rain endlessly
At the bottom of our hearts
Torrents of tenderness
So that love rules
Love rules
Up to the end of days

Serge Reggiani - How long it is to die, my youth

Original Title: "Comme elle est longue à mourir ma jeunesse"
Text: Jean Dréjac
Music: Michel Legrand
Year: 1971

How long it is to die, my youth
My youth in my heart
Have I never betrayed it, my youth
Who leaves me to my agitation
And who goes away from me
How long it is to die, this rose
This rose of life
The most beautiful of the garden of extravagances
One rose,
The last one of the garden we forget.

How heavy they are to carry in the fall
In the fall of life
Those dreams who will sink without anyone
Without anyone to care for them
We have to resign ourselves
But I am looking at one rose blossoming
One rose of the Spring
And I suddenly find something back
Under my hand
Yes, I am hearing the wandering heart
Of a young man
A young man
Who does not want to die