Léo Ferré - Caussimon - Both of us

Original title: "Nous deux"
Text: Jean-Roger Caussimon
Year: 1961

They left without a warning
With their kids and their guitars
Our gipsy brothers of Saint-Ouen
They left in a flurry of wings
And without return, the swallows
Paris had no use for them anymore
Waves of concrete and idiocy
Drug stores and some strip tease are necessary
High rises and undergrounds
And of Boulogne and of Vincennes
And of the florished quays of the Seine
Soon nothing will be left no more
But that day my turtledove
My girl who's mine, my all beautiful
My love sister, my mom
In spite of the planks and the soil
We'll snuggle up like we can do
Both of us...
In spit of the soil and the planks
We'll cuddle like on Sunday's
When we go to the movies
Both of us...
And let us meet in dream afterwards
Fascinated like Adam and Eve
But all proud of having found that
Both of us...

You see it's written on the frontpage
We are already fighting over the moon
Inocent children of tomorrow!
One general on the planets
Will follow you with its spyglass
And will say "It's red with blood ! "

By juggling so much with the bomb
One day it'll have to fall
It's its purpose and it's our lot
That day has to come eventually
Farewell, Paris and farewell, Vienna
Farewell Rome and Monte Carlo
But on that day my turtledove
My girl who's mine, my all beautiful
My love sister, my mom
Be it that everything turns to ice or burns
It does not matter if we are together
Us both...
That everything burns or that every turns to ice
We'll already have our place
In the legend of the lovers
Us both...
So when the planet will explode
If the trumpets ever sound
We'll divinely not care
Both of us...

People will treat me of artist
Of being heartless and if it saddens me
I'd not be surprised of it...
Because that pitiful and tender heart
To you only who could take it
It's been a long time I have given it...
Just like I give you today
This song of end of fall
That thought itself love song
I'm not a saint nor an apostle
And to still think of other people
The time left to me is too short
In the meanwhile my turtledove
My girl who's mine, my all beautiful
My love sister, my mom
As our souls wander
Let's kiss very close to the waves
Of the Ocean of the bad days
Us both...
And then to our faithful loves
In the heart of eternal snows
Let's get lost forever
Both of us!
Both of us!

Jean-Roger Caussimon's version (1970) :

Léo Ferré - Song for her

Original Title: "Chanson pour elle"
Year: 1961

If your body was made of thin lace
I'd embroide it by the four ends
And then I'd made so beautiful tablecloths out of it
That we'd eat love on our knees

If your eyes were ancient stars
Of those we see but are no more
I'd look behind the canvas
Of that big painting of suspended blue

If your crazy hair were the foremast
And that I made a boat out of your heart
While going back up the flow of the Seine
You'd be Paris and I sailor

If your black star where I brighten up
Was the chalice and if I were God
I'd drink Death there down to the roots
And then I'd go away to make the heavens again

If the dead suns of the celestial plains
Were coming down one day in your faded body
There would still shine to your modest breasts
A bit of their flame, a bit of my hunger

A bit of their flame, a bit of my hunger

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: