C'était menti [English translation]

All you said to me

Old Scott Joplin would curse1

All you said to me:

Nothing but lies2

You said happiness is a firecracker

hidden in the crinolines of Panhard's engines

You talked about Sissi on the Riviera

and about the industry and agriculture3

From the great czar Alexis4

to Karl Marx and the delusion5

Nothing, nothing but lies

Bloody Scott Joplin

All you said to me

Old Fats Waller would curse

All you said to me:

Nothing but lies2

You said happiness is a firecracker

in Al Capone's hands in Chicago at night

You talked of Metro Goldwyn, of Dessoto, and Packard

Lilly Palmer, one day, I'll have my share

Armstrong and Stormy Weather, also

Charleston and Mussolini

Nothing, nothing but lies

Bloody Fats Waller

All you said to me

Old Bob Dylan would curse

All you said to me:

Nothing but lies2

You said happiness is a firecracker

and revolution, an art expression6

Marianne Faithfull and her white chattering teeth

wrapped up in the anorak of Jack Kerouac

Kathmandu and death for a steal7

All the expensive limousines

Nothing, nothing but lies

Bloody Bob Dylan

And you, your love words at the piano

Was it just all fibs all along?

When you said that you did love me

What was it like?

1. please note the ambiguity here; the original can be understood two ways: "old, cursed Scott Joplin" or "old Scott Joplin curses." the same goes for the other times at which the phrasing "vieux ... maudit" is used in this text2. a. b. c. lit. "It was lies"3. lit. "You said the industry and agriculture / You said the old Sissy, on the Riviera"4. lit. "tsarevich Alexis," probably a reference to the last tsar of Russia, Alexei Nikolaevich - note the irony in phrasing here, considering the 1917 revolution kicked the Romanov family from power, before they were eventually executed during the civil war5. lit. "From Karl Marx, the daydream / and the tsarevich Alexis"6. lit. "the revolution [is] an art form"7. lit. "Kathmandu and death at a low price"