Poupées russes [English translation]

There's three of us, like the musketeers.

No news from d'Artagnan yet.

Three like the primary colors.

On the podium, we share gold, bronze and silver.

The achievements we'd like to write home about1

Each of us will grant you a wish, we are fairies, you twat2!

One of us has put the big bad wolf on ice at home3.

We are threezophrenic4, made of weird cells.

Three little chicks in the middle of the storm, out of control.

A new three-part work that has to be completed like a Tetris.

Extreme satyres, coming from a battle on Venus

but each of us protects the others like Russian dolls!

Like Russian dolls, like Russian dolls

Like Russian dolls, like Russian dolls

Like Russian dolls, like Russian dolls

Adversaries of the romantic attitude like legionaries led by Pyrrus5

Like Russian dolls, like Russian dolls

We being sisters is not only a pretence, if you think so you're being lazy.

Prey for all an all for three6, the result won't evolve.

Invulnerable when the birds of prey fly, despite the spasms we hold our rank and place.

We are inseparable like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.

Even if it was a heaven-sent, no way one of us would buzz alone.

We are always out of time but we want the world and we want it now.

Careless utopists, we rush down life's slope off-piste.

In a bad mood, we might have thought we were no good,

beyond the wall we build up Valerian7 steel characters.

You know us, prepare for another damn stanza.

There will be three of them, and inseparable like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.

Like Russian dolls, like Russian dolls

Like Russian dolls, like Russian dolls

Adversaries of the romantic attitude like legionaries led by Pyrrus

Like Russian dolls, like Russian dolls

We being sisters is not only a pretence, if you think so you're being lazy.

You'd have loved us to spare your life in the arena.

No peck on the cheek from the king, we want the queen's jewels8

As one since childhood, between us no striking days.

If the first one falls, the second one catches her, and the third one helps her up.

Hush! We're having fun, we should show that we're working hard...

Like Russian dolls, like Russian dolls

Adversaries of the romantic attitude like legionaries led by Pyrrus5

Like Russian dolls, like Russian dolls

We being sisters is not only a pretence, if you think so you're being lazy.

1. a laborious pun based on "ça ne casse pas trois pattes à un canard" (it doesn't break three legs of a duck) meaning "it's nothing to write home about". She says "[there's three of us, like] the number of duck legs we'd like to break"2. ??? might be some subcultural reference I'm missing3. ??? I don't really get it. Some feminist private joke, I guess4. ??? invented word whose wittiness eludes me5. a. b. What a pile of convoluted nonsense...6. "one for all and all for one" turned into a word salad7. yep, the pain-in-the-ass guy in Besson's flop, and a nice comics character if you care to read them. Complete nonsense here, just anoter laborious rhyme8. back to the 3 musketeers, apparently

• Artist:L.E.J
• Album:Poupées russes