L'alcool [English translation]

My illusions overlook the courtyard

My horizons are pretty limited

When I’ve worked all day long

There’s nothing left for me to dream about

But the horrible flowers of my room

My illusions overlook the courtyard

I’ve put my love affairs behind me

The little chicks, to touch them

First you have to cough up some cash

Otherwise they’re as cold as December

When evening falls I come home from the site

After a thousand stresses and with my body worn-out

I have a downcast look and disgusting hands

Bas enough to make the beauties grimace

Sure there are the hookers on the way back

The ones who chew gum while making love

But what would I find in their battered bodies

Apart from indifference and melancholy

In my old wall coloured rags

I play scarecrows

But my god in my soul

That flame burned all the same

Where my loves lit up

And my brief engagements

Where my loves were consumed

Like so many straw fires 1

Today I make my solitary way

All my ambitions have cleared off

I let myself be invaded by the nettles

By the brambles of this bitch of a life

My illusions overlook the courtyard

But in the suburban bars

I have tabs of dreams

And the sense of irony

I let myself go to the tenderness

I forget my room in the back of the courtyard

The suburban train at the crack of dawn

And in the alcoholic vapours

I see my Spanish castles

My stud farms and my duchesses

To me the little chicks the pretty dolls

Let the little mice come to me

I blow all I want at baccarat

I rub shoulders with maharajas

To me the south American nightclubs

Where once dances with an empty head and full hands

To me the cuties with looks that capsize

That need to be shaken before serving

In my dogtooth, in my Prince-of-Wales check

Calmly I wet my whistle

And my god in my soul

Now I feel that flame again

Where my loves lit up

And my brief engagements

Where my loves were consumed

Like so many straw fires

And when the bars have extinguished their neon lights

When there are no more watering holes in sight

So I let myself be soothed by the calvados

And the god of drunkards guides my steps

And the god of drunkards guides my steps

1. the English equivalent would usually be ‘a flash in the pan’ but that loses the sense of being rapidly consumed in a fire

• Artist:Serge Gainsbourg
• Album:Du chant à la une