Carpe Diem [English translation]

"Dead Poets Society"

Had aired the other day on channel 3

She had written on her suede pencil case in Tipp-Ex

Carpe Diem

I remember the girl who made me change seats and taught me humility

Who at an election for class representative

Would have been elected unanimously

But she was the new girl who arrived in the middle of the school year

Fatal

Because her parents had to move house

And leave their native Brittany

Her name was Marie, Martine, Isabelle or Solange

She talked with a weird accent, & had funny expressions

The girl who came from far away, couldn’t be more exotic

She had spread panic in our class

It's a high school love, a ghost from the past

That comes back to you at breakfast, a high school icon

Time is out of control and takes back what it sows

Carpe Diem

With an artichoke for a heart, and spots on my forehead

I would try my best

To play the sentimental guy,

With my boiling hormones

I recall myself, sweating under my anorak,

As uncomfortable as a fish out of water

When I declaimed, like Cyrano, green with stage fright

"Can you lend me your Tipp-Ex, please?"

So I thrust myself forward, & I invited her

To the best Quick (fast-food joint) in the area

To drink a banana milkshake like a dignified, generous man!

Out of big cardboard cups

With ‘The Big Blue’ soundtrack playing, holding her in my arms

Like the last scene from the movie, La Boum : Sophie Marceau and I

The divine Breton, as an absolute Venus

Had set her heart on me

It's a high school love, a ghost from the past

That comes back to you at breakfast, a high school icon

Time is out of control and takes back what it sows

Carpe Diem

How many times had I ran this movie in my head

Projected on the ceiling, my life in the year 2000

I see myself as a designer or a musician

She'd be a lawyer, and a model, too

In a large house with windows next to the water

With a big, slightly clumsy Bernese mountain dog

Children with golden curls running in the garden

Like the Ingalls family, but less American

... And a lot better

Yeah

And a lot better!

It's a high school love, a ghost from the past

That comes back to you at breakfast, a high school icon

Time is out of control and takes back what it sows

Carpe Diem