À flanc de certitudes [English translation]

As a child on my way along streets or on benches

Books on my back, within gob range,

I discovered exile, its trials and tribulations

This scent of solitude, this little insistent tune

Later, when taking into account the obvious, the conventional meaning

Of sentences sibylline in their innuendos

Tired of failing, my beloved, on the side of certainties

I filled my solitude

That ailment no unguent can cure

Exile for life, you see, on the side of certainties

This scent of solitude

Oh life on the side of certainties x 2

Let immigrants go back to Immigreenland

Right away, all foreigners to Foreignistan

Waltzing to the beat of the late Jean-Marie’s tirades

Or Auntie Eulalie’s slaps [?]

How intoxicating! No, thanks

Exile for life, you see, on the side of certainties

This whiff of solitude

Oh life on the side of certainties x2

La la la...

Oh Oh life on the side of certainties...

Sometimes I pretend to get busy, I sing

The intoxication of being nothing if not distress

To be already dead or else take vows of silence

Let someone tell me the difference

All of these thirty years I’ve been waiting

Exile for life, you see, on the side of certainties

A simple matter of habit