Sur une colline [English translation]

I would like to be atop a hill

where one breathes miraculous air

where the warm breeze caresses you as it blows

where the horizon merges in the blue

Here, everything is in smoke

everything is gray, it is all houses

and past sorrows

which stagnate in my prison

every stone tells a story

a story that is very sad

and of all the little inglorious dramas

in the memory of which one cries

I would like to be atop a hill

where one breathes miraculous air

where the warm breeze caresses you as it blows

where the horizon merges in the blue

I write these pitiful figures

in a big white register

And in this sad setting

there are those who are content

but my heart knows the martyrdom in that

I need an airy space

and the sound of the typewriters

torments me to tears

I would like to be near a river

where the sun makes its trembling reflections

on the green grass that borders a glade

While in the sky, white flakes pass by

I know that one can live

Far from cities, far from roads

i have read in many books

that which i did not know

i would like to be swept by passion

and to be taken away for a while

and sometimes i wish I were dead

buried, in fields

I would like to be atop a hill

where one breathes miraculous air

where the warm breeze caresses you as it blows

where the horizon merges in the blue.

• Artist:Édith Piaf