Charles Aznavour
Fraternité lyrics with English translation
- Language
- French
- Level
- Advanced
- Released
- 1960
- Genre
- French Pop, Ballad
- Length
- 2:11
Nous rentrions très tard, mêlant
We came back very late, blending
Des vers purs à des chants obscènes
Pure verses with obscene songs
Et l'on s'asseyait sur un banc
And we would sit on a bench
Pour regarder rêver la Seine
To watch the Seine dream
Sur l'eau rien ne vivait encore
On the water nothing lived yet
Ainsi qu'une ouvrière lasse
Like a weary worker
Pressant sur ses flancs ses fils morts
Pressing her dead threads to her sides
La Seine dormait dans sa crasse
The Seine slept in its grime
Nos cœurs d'ivrognes s'emplissaient
Our hearts of drunks filled up
D'une bienfaisante latrie
With a benevolent worship
Si le soleil, le vent doraient
If the sun, the wind were to gild
Les marronniers des Tuileries
The chestnut trees of the Tuileries
Pour mieux évoquer l'ancien soir
To better evoke the old evening
Le plâtre et le vin des tavernes
The plaster and the wine from the taverns
Égayaient nos vieux habits noirs
Brightened our old black clothes
Et nos plastrons d'hommes modernes
And our breastplates of modern men
Alors, ayant honte vraiment
Then, feeling truly ashamed
De nous connaître aussi lyriques
Of knowing ourselves so lyrical
Nous offrions un coup de blanc
We offered a splash of white
Aux balayeurs mélancoliques
To the melancholic sweepers
Belle ruse et l'on découvrait
Beautiful trick and we discovered
Dans le balayeur, un poète
In the sweeper, a poet
Si bien que les verres tremblaient
So much so that the glasses trembled
Sur le comptoir, autel de fête
On the counter, altar of celebration
Et pour que ce soir sans égal
And so that this unparalleled evening
Fût perpétué un pandore
Could be perpetuated a guardian
On dressait le procès verbal
We prepared the official report
Parsemé d'attendus sonores
Sprinkled with sonorous expectations
Lyrics powered by www.musixmatch.com
Key vocabulary
- cœurs
- heartsA1
- encore
- againA1
- morts
- deadA1
- rien
- nothingA1
- soleil
- sunA1
- vieux
- oldA1
- vin
- wineA1
- vraiment
- reallyA1
- rentrions
- we returned
- mêlant
- mixing
About this song
Charles Aznavour was a French-Armenian singer and actor whose music blended French chanson with Eastern European folk, American jazz, tango, and Middle Eastern influences. He was known for a long-running career marked by thousands of recordings and his songwriting, composing or co-composing over a thousand songs for himself and other artists.