La Memoria y el Mar [English translation]

The tide in my heart heart

tosses around like a swan.

I die in every song

of innocence in the open air.

In the end, a ship depends

on how it docks on the port.

My firmament expands,

a thousand years of light, in uncertainty.

I am the phantom of the moon,

That appears on frosty nights.

To embrace you in the sea mist,

and take you in its wake.

In the tunny nets of July,

There was a tuna fish, all alone

It seems to be praying

With the pearls of a rosary.

I remember the sea dog

Whom we free from its conviction

It's determined to bury,

The seaweed over the sand.

Life beats there too,

With its lungs made of flannel1

Time weeps as it drifts,

A grey cold awaits us.

I remember those afternoons,

Running over the sea foam.

Like wild horses

Caressing one by one.

Oh, angel of forgotten pleasure,

Oh, rumor of that summit,

My desire and power

Are now nostalgia, to the fire.

Devil of the white nights,

In its slow rising of the morning,

A blade of paradise,

in the moss of pleasure.

Return girl of the valleys

Return, violin of the vines.

To the port where the streets,

Sing for the comrades.

Oh rare saline perfume,

In the fire of your wound,

I went blindly to my destiny,

Like a flame to a living love,

In the bed of the wild foliage

You finally smile at me,

The blue of a stained glass,

And you're my melancholy.

On the shells of light you fly

Beneath my feet they broke.

They seemed to be like castanets

Playing bulerias2.

Have mercy God of the stone,

Of its ornamental sigh.

When the knife releases

Its original sin.

It noticed it palpitating,

The life that I sensed.

Between layers of blood

Of an ancient prophecy.

That blue with precision, over that sea,

Was never serene.

May it return the light

To the memory of the soul.

That rumor that arises there,

That sun that now blinds me.

These hands, now broken,

Remanent handful of oats.

That rumor that still persists

Like that cursed anathema.

Like a shadow, insistingly

deciphering my theorem.

And like the wind in January

There comes a knock at my door

That rumor on the streets,

Like music that has come to an end.

It has drowned in the sea,

The wicked sand in the beach is no more.

Like an infinite herd, the shepherdess sea calls me,

Like an infinite herd, the shepherdess sea calls me.

1. not sure about the meaning of this, does it compare a set of lungs to something fragile?2. Andalusian song accompanied with clapping and dancing

• Artist:Amancio Prada
• Album:Vida de Artista: Canciones / Chansons de Léo Ferré [2007]