Damoclès [English translation]

You ask me what I really want

Vague question, but as I have some time

Let’s try and make an inventory

A rudimentary list

I’ll just throw down what comes to me

While trying not to forget anything

I’d like one day to dance the tango

To traverse the Atlantic on a cargo ship

And the Nile on a felucca

And fashions without changing my look

And life without too much trouble

Before death casts its shadow

It’ll come much too soon to grab hold of me

Damocles, you just put your sword away 1

You’re going to hurt yourself or lose a finger

I don’t even have a plaster

Put your blade back in it's sheath

There’s no shortage of executioners

I’d like to observe from the moon

That the earth is blue like a citrus fruit 2

To have a real bar-room brawl

A piano in a backroom

Come over here and say that to my face!

And finish up in a trough

I’d really like to get to know a holding cell

Apologies to those that have for real

And then hey, as long as I’m there

To run a minting machine

To pay for a happy life for me

To hold back the reaper

Who’ll come much too soon to grab hold of me

Damocles, you just put your sword away

You’re going to hurt yourself or lose a finger

If you cry don’t count on me

There’s no shortage of worries

Put your blade back in its case

I’d like to be while holding a half inch spanner 3

Someone who’s good enough to marry

That a little guy under my pencil

Be more that a circle and five sticks

According to the length of hair

He becomes a woman if I want

Most of all I’d like to make you happy

I believe me I try, I think about it, I delve

I want most of all to forget nothing

Each grain of sand from the hourglass

As when near you they pour out

Before the reaper appears

It’ll come much too soon to grab hold of me

Damocles, you just put your sword away

You’re going to hurt yourself or lose a hand

If you want come back tomorrow

There’s no shortage of sycamores 4

For now put away your blade

1. Reference to The Sword of Damocles, a metaphor for a looming fate2. A reference to 'Tintin et les oranges bleues' or indeed the Paul Éluard quote that inspired the title https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tintin_and_the_Blue_Oranges 3. or a 12 mm one if you prefer4. The sycamores that line many of France's road are notorious for sending careless drivers to the happy carpark in the sky

• Artist:Renan Luce
• Album:D'une tonne à un tout petit poids