L'Homme à Tête de Chou [English translation]

I’m the man with the cabbage head:

Half vegetable, half guy.

For the lovely eyes of Marilou

I went off and pawned

My Remington and my ride

I was in the depths of the hold,* on the edge

Of my nerves, I didn’t have a kopeck left.

From the day I mixed myself up with

Her I lost almost everything

My job at the cabbage leaf,*

Where scandals equal beefsteaks*

I was finished, fucked, check-

Mate in the eyes of Marilou,

Who treated me like a white-beak*

And drove me half mad.

Oh no you have no idea, guy

She needed discothèques

And dinners at the Kangaroo

Club, so I signed the cheques

Without the funds, it was crazy, crazy

At the end I waited and waited

Like a brainless melon a watermelon

But how No, I’m not just going

Spell it out for you like that, cut and dry.

What? Me? Love her still? Nails!*

Who and where am I? Cabbaged* here or

In the white foam wrack

On the beach in Malibu.

• Artist:Serge Gainsbourg
• Album:L'Homme à Tête de Chou