Les plus belles années de ma vie [English translation]

I had been dreaming for a long time of my first guitar,you know

I was crazy,i was fifteen years old,I didn't dare to believe it

My parents weren't agreed ,they knew by heart

My three songs on two chords,I awaited for my moment

I was crazy of Bécaud, Brassens and Aznavour*

I was falling asleep on my radio,i was making contests

Then I discovered the english groups,I watched them on TV

their movements that I was redoing in my attic

You who gave me the most beautiful years of my life

My biggest hopes,also my biggest regrets

Like I loved you,you my musique,my first big love

I tried many times to follow you,however I was always

a step behind,seeking how to please you

1965 in Golf Drouot** that was nights without an ending

the music in the skin and everything for my friends

In a club in the suburbs we used to pass our time every night

And if the neighbors shouted slightly,we forgave them

And then the seventies,the festivals where we were lost in the nature

we were thousands under the stars for some covers

the peuple used to dance,slap their hands,we believed it already

And Avignon*** wasn't anymore a suburb of Olympia

You who gave me the most beautiful years of my life

My biggest hopes,also my biggest regrets

Like I loved you,you my musique,my first big love

I tried many times to follow you,however I was always

a step behind,seeking how to please you

1972,it was Paris,the group was dispersed

When I met Mary-Cristine,I was on the pavement

The night to pay a bed we were spending all our money

But I told her my life and she understood me

And she followed me in hundreds of recording and publishing houses

where the people that listened to my songs didn't like them

And when I sold my old guitar it was her who helped me

to finally understand that it would never work

You who gave me the most beautiful years of my life

My biggest hopes,also my biggest regrets

Like I loved you,you my musique,my first big love

I tried many times to follow you,however I was always

a step behind,seeking how to please you

• Artist:Joe Dassin
• Album:13 Chansons Nouvelles (1973)