L'orage [English translation]

Please don’t talk about sun, you can talk about rain:

All those good weather days were made to drive me insane,

And when it’s blue skies – I curse out loud:

For the truly great love of my life in this world

Was sent in a storm from Jove, the lightning God,

When love came down from Heaven’s thunder clouds.

One dark night in November a thunderstorm crashed.

Above roof-tops that trembled sheets of lightning flashed,

And in the tempest high winds howled and roared.

Then the lady next-door in a great state of fear

And her night-dress came over – she hoped that help was

near –

She knocked so hard she nearly broke my door.

I’m alone and afraid, won’t you please let me in?

My poor husband’s out, a storm means work for him;

He’s got to earn his keep against the odds.

He goes out on the job in the worst kind of weather

But the reason is plain – he’s a salesman as you’ll

gather.

He’s finding customers for lightning rods .

And I blessed the inventor, good Benjamin Franklin,

As I opened my arms and took her safely within –

You know that Love will always find a way.

But I wonder super-salesman of lightning conduction

Why you made the mistake, and issued no instruction

To put one in for her security?

Now when Jove and his thunderbolts went off elsewhere

And the beauty at last had overcome her fear,

And had completely pulled herself together;

She went home where she dried out the poor man, but first

Made her plans to return if a thunderstorm should burst.

We had a date! Depending on the weather!

From that moment I never once lowered my eyes,

I did nothing but gaze upon the great wide skies

And watch the passing clouds that floated free.

I would look out for stratus, I would seek out the nimbus,

Making eyes to encourage fair cumulus into grimness,

And yet she never did come back to me.

For that evening her husband had been in fine fettle

And the fellow had sold so many bits of metal

That he became a millionaire no wonder!

So he took her away to the bluest of skies,

To the stupidest lands where rain’s not recognized

And no-one’s even heard of thunder.

Dearest Lord, hear my prayer: send her on my lament,

Let it tell her of loving in the storm you sent,

Of how we braved the tempest, seized our chance.

And of love at first sight – how the lightning engraved

On my heart a small flower, I’ll bear it to the grave,

A sprig of rosemary, that’s for Love’s Remembrance.

• Artist:Georges Brassens
• Album:Le mécréant (1960)