Jacques Bertin - I shall meet you in a reversed dream

Original Title: "Je te rencontrerai dans un rêve inversé"

Year: 1980

I'll meet you in a reversed dream
compared to the motion of the rains and tides
Maybe we'll love each other, we have no clue
What's the point to assume that everything is distorted
Nothing ever goes well.

I'll see you, you'll be laid on the road, far to the front
In the song of the wipers never completely in rythm, and you in front
placed high over the zip skirt that splits on the front
Forest parted on each side
And you up there, in front

It's at that time that you come back from your secret lives
Where have you been germinating?
If you hear me, get down from your air mattress
There are no houses at the end of the road
There is the road there in front

Flats we occupy, we desert
Corridors like loves
And the road, there in front

I'll meet you in our life that is always reversed
like a dream
Maybe we'll love each other, we have no clue
You'll get in the car with your sad look and your sex
Your white skin and everything that is needed for the harm
And rain will cover us.

Dominique A - The Water Trade

Original Title: "Le commerce de l'eau"
Year: 2001

The falling rain is sweet
And we are making love
Some further down are involved
in the water trade
As they smell a bankruptcy
They take bastard looks
And they make money out of the rain
And we are making love

Barks are running nearby
We see some bailing out
Sending water back to water
The rain however seemed
Innocuous and sweet
Discreet like the moment
that let itself get hung up
And make us love one another

And money is made out of the rain
In the tea houses
Where disapointed settlers
evoke old summers
where noone was spoking
about the water trade
Of that bailed out water
On small boats

We, oblivious of everything
And the world under reach
We do not know anything else
but how to love each others
Transactions are made
up to our own backs
And we get nothing from it
but the taste of the skin

The rain falling is hard
for those who have to row
And who later to drink
Will still have to pay
But as she settles
Like silk, velvet
On the benevolent back
Of those making love.

The rain falling is hard
for those who have to row
And who later to drink
Will still have to pay
But as she settles
Like silk, velvet
On the benevolent back
Of those making love.

Jacques Bertin - A moment

Original Title: "Un instant"
Year: 1972

A moment like fallen from the pocket, a cigarette
A moment or a blade of grass pulled up from the water
A caesura in the running, in the breath
A measurement for nothing just before the sob
A wound cutting in two the ear of the plain
to throw there a river like a water trickle
If you talk it does not matter
Talk of the body's presence and of rest

In the shoulder, a moment motionless
In the shoulder of the earth
Stopped between the two pages of the book
A moment

A gaze on life gathered the whole life
On a floor the piano under a little girl's fingers
The silence on the roofs. The music
And just below certainties, that moment
Just below words, promisses, habits
To recognise ourselves stranger to ourselves and strong, a moment

A moment, on the bridge
Or it's me arched between the banks
And from everywhere the call swelling, the uncertain call
The noise, the noise of the street, of building sites, the noise of the blood
In the arteries the noise, always the same noise
of tiredness and of fear, the noise of blood

Life or something as usual
that doesn't dare to say its name
Maybe the friendship for men
A stolen fruit on a stal and nothing more
A moment in that bedroom where a woman
is undressing slowly in the protected silence of her curtains.

Jacques Bertin - The Big Departures

Original Title: "Les Grands Départs"
Year: 1984

Who will know where I have been
I will go away on a road
fortuitously without anyone suspecting
Did I even know myself where I was going?

Phone along the wires
Tired heart, fragile engine
Deserted hamlet and destiny
Derisory, futile decor

Someone calls, it is noon
But with a voice that barely dares
Everything is asleep, looks like everything is said
And your uncertain tenderness
parts an ancient wound

Friends, Oh you are abandoning me
Save me, odd is my sorrow
Life flows through the wound

I'll go away in the silence
In my regained silence
At the top of the meadows, in my silence
And in the grass where I'd have passed
The friendship of inert things
Will wrap around me to ruin me
Two minutes of damned waves
And in the blond to become motionless
I will die.

Léo Ferré - Arthur Rimbaud - The seven years old poets

Original Title: "Les poètes de sept ans"
Text: Arthur Rimbaud (1871)
Year: 1964

And the mother, closing the homework book²
was going away satisfied and very proud, without seeing,
In the blue eyes and under the forehead full of eminences
the soul of her child handed over to the repugnances

The whole day he sweat of obedience, very
intelligent, though black twitches, a few features
Seemed to prove in him acrid hypocrisies
In the shadow of the corridors with moldy hangings
In passing, he sticked his tongue out, both fists
at the groin and in his closed eyes was seeing dots
A door opened on the evening: with the lamp
you could see him, up there, moaning on the ramp
Under a gulf of daylight hanging from the roof. The summer
mostly, vanquished, stupid, he persisted in
withdrawing in the coolness of the latrines
He was thinking there, tranquil and handing over his nostrils

When washed from the smells of the day, the small garden
behind the house, in winter, moonlit
lying at the bottom of a wall, burried in the marl
and for visions crushing his scatterbrained eye
He listenned to the swarming squalid wall bars
Mercy! Those children alone were his familiars
Who, puny, naked forehead, eye losing on the cheek its colors,
hiding thin yellow and black from mud fingers
Under clothes stinking of the fair and old-looking
conversed with the sweetness of the idiots!
And if, having surprised him doing hideous pities
His mother grew scared; the deep tendernesses,
of the child, threw themselves on that astonishment.
It was good. She had the blue gaze, - that lies!

When 7 years old, he was making novels about life
of the big desert where gleams the Freedom delighted,
Forests, suns, shores, savanas! - He made use
of illustrated journals in which, redfaced, he looked at
Spanish women laugh and Italian women
When came, the brown eye, mad, in indian dresses,
- Eight years Old, - the daughter of the workers next door
The little one brutal, and she had jumped,
In a corner, on his back while shaking her braids
And he was under her, he was biting her buttocks
Because she was never wearing pants
- And, by her bruised by fists and heels,
Took away the flavors of her skin in his room,

He feared the pale sundays of december
Where, pomaded, on a mahogany pedestal table
he was reading a bible with a cabage green edge
Dreams oppressed him every night in the alcove
He didn't like God; but the men, who in the musky evening
Black, in blouse, he saw coming back to the suburb
Where the town criers, in three drum rolls
Make around edicts laugh and roar the crowds
- He dreamt the loving meadow, where luminous
swells, sane perfumes, golden pubescence
make their calm movement and soar up !

And as he savored mostly the dark things,
When, in the naked room with closed shutters,
High and blue, acridly held with dampness
He was reading his novel constantly contemplated
Full of heavy ochrid skies and sunken forests,
of flesh flowers with deployed sidereal woods
Dizziness, Collapses, routs and mercies!
- While the neighborhood's rumor matured
downstairs, - alone and lying on cloth pieces
ecru, and violently foreboding the sail !

²in french it also sounds like the "book of duties" as homeworks and duties are the same word.

Live version

léo ferré - les poètes de sept ans

Jacques Bertin - A Journey

Original Title: "Un Voyage"
Year: 1980

I found the old crack back in the hull
Dampness oozing out like the eternal poison
I cried, seated, the head against the compartment
On the other side the engine was beating his deep song
The one who comes from childhood and whose low frequencies are always right

Where are you going to drop your bag
make a bed with your tears

There was hanging in that place a smell of asphalt and urine
Carved accross the wound a name could be distinguished
An illusion or a message or a trademark.
The world was passing against the portholes, slowly like a world
The pretentious facades were crumbling in the blind spots.
We were seeing faces of women, frozen and thoughtful
Marking the mist like immature winter suns.

I do not know why I'm fighting
The ship is taking me into dawn
Toward the high sea of course like every morning
I find myself making my nasty traffic in an indistinct port
You have to pay in cash in strong currency and with a smile

I do not know why I'm fighting
I cried in the scorching heat
The world is beautiful
Women give themselves seeming to forget themselves
Our victories are in front of us
That are holding out their hands to us

Where are you going to drop your bag
make a bed with your tears

Philippe Léotard - Louis Aragon - Is this how men live?

Original Title: "Est-ce ansi que les hommes vivent"
Text: Louis Aragon (1956)
Music: Léo Ferré
Year: 1961

Everything is matter of scenery
Changing of bed, changing of body
What for? As it's again
I who betrays myself
I who drags myself and lie around
And my shadow undresses itself
In the arms alike of girls
Where I believed I found a country
Light heart, changing heart, heavy heart
The time to dream is quite short
What should be done of my nights
What should be done of my days
I had nor love nor residence
Nowhere where I live or die
I was passing like the rumor
I fell asleep like the noise

Is this how men live?
And their kisses follow them in the distance

It was an unreasonable weather
The deads had been put on the table
We were making sand castles
We took wolves for dogs
Everything was changing pole and shoulder
Was the play funny or not
I if I didn't hold my part well
It was because I didn't understand anything

Is this how men live?
And their kisses follow them in the distance

In the Hohenzollern district
Between the Saar and the barracks
Like the lucerne's flowers
Blossomed Lola's breasts
She had a swallow's heart
On the brothel's couch
I come to lie down beside her
among the hiccups of the pianola

Is this how men live?
And their kisses follow them in the distance

The sky was grey with clouds
There flew wild gooses
That were shouting death in passing
Above the houses of the quays
I saw them through the window
Their sad song entered in my being
And I thought I was recognizing
some Rainer Maria Rilke
She was brown and though pale
Her hair fell over her hips
And the week and the sunday
She opened her naked arms to everyone
She had earthenware eyes
She worked valiantly
For an artilleryman from Mainz
Who never came back from it

Is this how men live?
And their kisses follow them in the distance

There are other soldiers in town
And the night the civilians go up
Put mascara on your eyelashes
Lola who will soon go away
It was in april at five o'clock
At daylight that in your heart
A dragoon plunged his knife

Is this how men live?
And their kisses follow them in the distance

Léo Ferré's version:


Catherine Sauvage's version:


Monique Morelli's version:

All poems written by Louis Aragon

Yves Montand - Druon/Poll - The galley slave

Original Title: "Le Galérien"
Text: Maurice Druon
Music: Léo Poll
Year: 1942

I remember, my mom loved me
and I'm in the galleys
I remember my mom said
But I didn't believe my mother

Don't roam in the gutters
Don't fight like a savage
Don't have fun like the birds
She told me to behave
I didn't kill, I didn't steal
I wanted to try my luck
I didn't kill, I didn't steal
I wanted everyday to be sunday

I remember my mom cried
As soon as I was crossing the door
I remember how she cried
She didn't want me to go out

Always, always she said
Don't go to see girls
Don't always do what you want
In prisons, there are bars
I didn't kill, I didn't steal
But I believed Madeleine
I didn't kill, I didn't steal
I didn't want to make her sad

One day the King's soldiers
Will take you to the galleys
You'll go away three by three
Like they took away your father
You will have the head shaved
They will put you in chains
You will have the back broken
And I will die from sorrow

I didn't kill, I didn't steal
But I didn't believe my mother
I remember that she loved me
While I'm rowing in the galleys

Jacques Bertin - Gireaudoux/Jaubert - Tessa's song

Jacques Bertin's version

Original Title: "La Chanson de Tessa"
Text: Jean Gireaudoux
Music: Maurice Jaubert
Year: 1934, 1954 (Mouloudji's version),1959 (Douai's version),1982 (Bertin's version)

Stay here below, my faithful heart
If you go away life is my eternal sorrow

If you die, the birds will stay quiet forever
If you are cold, no sun will burn
In the morning the joy of dawn won't wash my eyes anymore
All around your grave, the blossomed rosebushes
Would let their flowers hang and wither
Beauty will die with you, my only love

If I die, the birds will only keep quiet one evening
If I die, for another, one day, you will forget me
Again the joy of living then will wash your gaze
In the morning you will see the mountain lit up
On my grave offering you thousand flowers
Beauty will be revived without me, my only love

Jacques Douai's version:

Mouloudji's version:

Monique Morelli - Louis Aragon - Elsa

Text: Louis Aragon (1956)
Music: Léo Ferré
Year: 1961 (Ferré's version), 1966 (Morelli's version)

Is it then sufficient for you to appear
of that look you have when tying
Your hair up, that touching gesture,
For me to revive and recognise
A world inhabited by the singing
Elsa my love, my youth

Oh strong and sweet like wine
Alike to the sun of the windows
You give me back the caress of being
You give me back the thirst and the hunger
To live still and to experience
our story until the end

It's a miracle to be together
The light on your cheek
That around you the wind plays
Everytime if I see you I tremble
Like for his first date
A young man looking like me

For the first time your mouth
For the first time your voice
from a wing to the peak of the woods
The tree simmers down to the stump
It's always the first time
When your dress while passing touches me

My life in truth begins
The day I met you
You whose arms were able to block
Its atrocious way to my dementia
And who showed me the land
That kindness alone sows

You came at the heart of helplessness
to chase the bad fevers out
And I've blazed like a juniper
At Christmas between your fingers
I'm really born from your lip
My life originates from you

So, is it thus sufficient for you to appear
of that look you have when tying
Your hair up that touching gesture
For me to revive and recognise
A world inhabited by the singing
Elsa my love, my youth

Léo Ferré's version:

All poems written by Louis Aragon

Jacques Douai - Prévert - Demons and marvels

Second song of the video, starts at 2:35 (first is "Colchiques dans les prés") :


Original Title: "Démons et merveilles"
Text: Jacques Prévert
Music: Joseph Kosma
Year: 1942, 1958 (Douai's version)

Demons and marvels, winds and tides
far away already the sea withdrawn
and you like a seaweed
softly caressed by the wind
In the sands of the bed
you stir while dreaming

Demons and marvels, winds and tides
Far away already the sea withdrawn
but in your half opened eyes
two small waves remained

Demons and marvels, winds and tides
two small waves to drown myself

Extract from The Devil's Envoys (Visiteurs du Soir), sung by Jacques Jansen over the voice of actor Alain Cuny:

Cora Vaucaire's version:

Michèle Arnaud's version:

Léo Ferré - Louis Aragon - The red poster

Ferré's version
slightly modified translation from wikipedia:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L'affiche_rouge_(poem)
Text: Louis Aragon (inspired by Missak Manouchian's last letter) in 1955
Year: 1961

You didn't beg for glory nor tears
Nor the organ music, nor the last rites
Eleven years already, how quickly eleven years go by
You simply made use of your weapons
Death does not dazzle the eyes of partisans.

You had your pictures on the walls of our cities
Black with beard and night, dishevelled, threatening
The poster, that seemed like a bloodstain,
because your names are hard to pronounce,
Sought to sow fear in the passers-by.

No one seemed to be enclined to see you French
People went without eyes for you the whole day,
But at time of curfew, wandering fingers
Wrote under your pictures "Fallen for France"
And it made the gloomy mornings different.

Everything had the unvarying colour of frost
In late February for your last moments
And that's when one of you said calmly:
"Happiness to all, happiness to those who will survive,
I die without hate in me for the German people.

"Farewell to sorrow, farewell to pleasure. Farewell the roses,
Farewell life, the light and the wind.
Get married, be happy and think of me often
You who will remain in the beauty of things
When all will be over later in Erevan.

"A broad winter sun lights up the hill
How beautiful nature is and how my heart breaks
Justice will come over our triumphant footsteps,
My Mélinée, oh my love, my orphan girl,
And I tell you to live and to bear a child."

There were twenty-three of them when the rifles flowered
Twenty-three who gave their hearts before it was time,
Twenty-three foreigners and yet our brothers
Twenty-three lovers of living to the point of dieing for it
Twenty-three who shouted "France!" as they fell.

Monique Morelli's version

Jacques Bertin's version

All poems written by Louis Aragon

Jacques Bertin - Claire

Year: 1972

Hear :
The record is turning without playing
Do you hear the silence
A footstep is fading in the staircase
It's not completely night

Your girlfriend will come back tomorrow
Or it'll be another one, it does not matter,
with braids or Claire
With her blond hair and the accent from Quebec

There will be gatherings tomorrow
and under the rain marches
for the Vietname or Greece
and you, you sign with both hands

You don't like shouts
though you do not like those who believe in it
Claire will maybe come
But you'd prefer to be alone

You'd walk on the sidewalk
along the march
You'd not shout the slogans
Claire doesn't dare to talk to you

Claire has small breasts
She doesn't like to stay naked after love
You are not sure if you love her
but she has a confident gaze

She says she learned to have an orgasm with you
You do not answer anything
You do not want her to imprison you
You stay aloof

Catch up Claire in the staircase
Tell her: Come back Claire
Hold her back, the night is falling
And the silence is scoffing at you
Claire, hold her back

Hear :
The record is turning without playing
Do you hear the silence
A footstep is fading in the staircase
It's not completely dark

Dominique A - That absent gesture

Original Title: "Ce geste absent"
Year: 2012

When she arrived
Dawn was a wreck
Of night wasted
Pretending to be unhindered
Miming the joy of exhilaration
Under the laughters of hazard warning lights
Who never go out really
Tonight you saw me differently.

Because of a moment.
of an eclipse.
of a retained gesture
It would have been better
Even an awkward movement
Even an offended gaze
Rather than that gesture avoided
That absent gesture

We allowed ourselves everything
We let ourselves go
We laughed of seeing the night chasing us
To hear it run after us breathless
But one moment your laugh
slipped, I've seen your sorrow
I continued laughing anyway
And I lost you on the spot

Because of a moment.
of an eclipse.
of a retained gesture
It would have been better
Even an awkward movement
Even an offended gaze
Rather than that gesture avoided
That absent gesture

When she arrived
Dawn was a wreck
A frozen laugh
Like a wound on a face
Un mirthless laugh, gone the exhilaration
Where hazard warning lights are burning
You look at me oddly
Tonight you saw me differently

Because of a moment.
of an eclipse.
of a retained gesture
It would have been better
Even an awkward movement
Even an offended gaze
Rather than that gesture avoided
That absent gesture