J'arrive à toi [English translation]

I come to the harbour empty handed

I come to the evening not sparing my efforts.1

And every morning I must start again empty.

I come to the (battle)front without wisdom2

I come of age without reason3

We sure hardly4 live

We sure live unceremoniously

I come to you by a miracle

after long years

after centuries of impediments

and mondays, mondays so sad you want to cry.

I can't manage anything that soothes

I can't manage anything that pretends

I can't manage anything that soars

anything that could stand the test of time.

And if by chance a star

pays attention to us for a moment,

life sure throws us down5

life sure takes us on6

I come to you by a miracle after long years

spent taking counsels from oracles

and keepiung a watch, a watch on the undreamed-of

I come from Northern Ireland

I come from the bottom of a vale

I come straight from Samarkand

I come from peppery Indies

And even if sometimes I sing and get carried away,

life sure torments us

we sure taste regrets.

I come to you by a miracle

After long years

After the greyish childhood

and the youth, the frenzied youth.

1. "sans compter" can mean a few different things in French, but the context is so vague I just picked one of the possible meanings2. does not mean anything particular. There is no French saying about the wisdom of front-line soldiers, as far as I know3. weak pun on "l'âge de raison" (age of reason)4. does not mean much, but could also be read literally as "we live out of fairness/correctness"5. "dévaler" means "hurtle down" and is not a transitive verb, so this is just weak French, though the meaning is easy to guess6. this makes precious little sense in French. Either "life starts talking to us" or "life tackles us" maybe?