Mon copain Bismark [English translation]

It has been a long time

Since I saw my friend Bismarck

Who was mahout in a circus

And who translated Petrarch into Turkish in Dunkirk

All my friends told me

"Where is your friend Bismarck

Who was mahout in a circus

And who translated Petrarch into Turkish in Dunkirk? "

I looked for him in Guatemala, in Nicaragua

In the Solomon Islands and in Aveyron

In Puerto Rico

In Campo-Formio

And then at a man from Zanzibar

Whose name is Milton Édouard

I looked for him in Marcq-en-Bareuil

At the Auteuil gate

In Gallipoli, in the United States

I could never know

Where he was

And yet I have really

Well searched for him

So I gave up on finding my friend Bismarck

Who was mahout in a circus

And who translated Petrarch into Turkish in Dunkirk

It's when I got home

That I learned that my friend Bismarck

Hadn't moved from his circus

And was still translating Petrarch in Dunkirk

I had been for nothing in Guatemala

In Nicaragua

In the Solomon Islands

And in the Aveyron

In Puerto Rico

In Campo-Formio

And then at a man from Zanzibar

Whose name is Milton Édouard

I had been for nothing in Marcq-en-Bareuil

At the Auteuil gate

In Gallipoli, in the United States

So I decided to go find my friend

Ouimanagadouboudé

Who is a sorcerer among the hunters on foot

Between Tananarive and Bagnolet

• Artist:Nino Ferrer