Les Grognards [English translation]

Listen, people of Paris:

You don't have the fever.

Listen to these footsteps that are walking in the night,

That approach your dream.

You see the shadows that form a huge fresco hung in your sky.

Listen, people of Paris:

Watch, people of Paris, these eternal shadows

That parade by singing under your sky.

We are the grumblers, the grenadiers,

Without grenades, without guns nor shoes,

Without enemies and without an army,

We are bored in the night of the past.

We are the grumblers, the grenadiers,

Without grenades, without guns nor shoes,

Tonight we are going to parade

In the middle of your Champs-Élysées.

Wagram, Iéna, Eylau, Arcole, Marengo...it sounds good.

What pretty battles.

All this work,

It was for nothing

Since the names of the streets,

Where you walk,

It is with the blood

Of our twenty years

That they have been engraved.

We are the grumblers, the grenadiers,

Without grenades, without guns nor shoes,

Without enemies and without an army,

We are bored in the night of the past.

We are the grumblers, the grenadiers,

We are dead on the strange fields.

We visited Russia

But we have never seen Paris.

We didn't have time

To have spring

That smiles at us.

Our poor loves,

Lasted a day,

Goodbye and thank you.

Roll, roll the drums.

In the morning

We were leaving.

At the sound of the bugler,

And the cannon,

Our life was dancing.

We are the grumblers, the grenadiers,

We have been forgotten, forgotten...

Since the times of our battles,

There were so many soldiers

But, tonight, you will see us

Without grenades, without guns nor shoes,

Parade at pace

In the middle of your Champs-Élysées

Without grenades...

Without guns...

Nor shoes...

To Paris...

• Artist:Édith Piaf