Hel Nep Avenue [English translation]

As I was arriving, my head in a mess

Between my guitar and my bag

I heard “poor fool, don’t make a move

Don’t make a move

The next step that you take

Could lead you straight to hell

Nobody’s warned you

You’re on She didn’t Show Avenue” 1

Boulevard of the windblown papers

The wind there comes straight down from the North Pole

That makes for quirky songs, quirky songs

Singers with drooping shoulders

Swallowed by the undergrowth 2

Yet another fall of rain

On She Didn’t Show Avenue

A few bars of silence

When the bus arrives

Not a single girl steps from it, and the blues starts up again

You can see the wrinkles deepen

On those waiting in the void

There’s no sky overhead

The She Didn’t Show Avenue

Nobody warned you

At this time she won't be coming anymore

There’s no sky overhead

The She Didn’t Show Avenue

Avenue of blues, boulevard of nobody

Robert Johnson was seen hanging out there

‘Til morning strumming the misery, the misery

There's a square of lawn left

Where a few jealous silhouettes

Come to lay flowers at the statue

You’re on She Didn’t Show Avenue

Tenderness hung from the music stands

Street of the glassless windows

How many lovesick people sprawled out, sprawled out

We’ve all sung there once

Since then we all have the same voice

One time and then you never forget it

She Didn’t Show Avenue

How many lovesick sprawled out

So, so many jealous silhouettes

Yet another fall of rain

Nobody’s warned you

That now she’s wont be coming anymore

There’s no sky overhead the She Didn’t Show Avenue

1. Here Cabrel sings of a place "Hel nep avenue" pronounced "elle n'est pas venue" literally "She did not come". This is a sad and lonely but possibly also a creative place for a singer to pass their time. A retreat for those for whom Elvis's Heartbreak Hotel is just too damn cheerful2. The climbing ferns