J’avais rêvé du Nord [English translation]

Between Martigues and Marseille

Dipping in the waters of Africa

Fate has dictated that I sit

Close to the septic tank...(1)

Where I was born the sea reeked of gasoline

Under the oxydized sky and the sun blazing, dirty with lead

Falling as thick as straitjackets

Between Permanent Establishment buildings;

Where I was born sheet metal and plastic horizoned

Each piece of browned earth like the Arizona desert,

Only riff-raff like to hang around

In this gigantic sauna and

Where I was born it was never a good idea to venture out:

The cop lost his balls in front of the gangs(2)

Who would put a hole through you

If your face was too white...

Because where I was born is no longer France,

Our gothic splendors:

Those of rotting stone walls

Tagged with exotic swear words...

Yellow with blue eyes, all tanned

Planted in the wrong setting

Begging for my fair destiny

I had suddenly dreamed of the North

Of undeveloped and wooded tracts,

Of a welcoming permafrost

Across which will never again pass

The eternal aversion to ebony.

I had wanted to crack Phoebus

And shoot back all of his arrows

So that he would crash like an Airbus

Between Marseille and Marrakech

And you appeared to me as a mirror, a brother in hatred

Generous provider of twilight and ice,

Discordant horn of European resentment

Blowing mud on those who scorn my race

You Black Metal! Forged in garages at night

Like an artisan bombshell

Made half-dream half-rage,

You Black Metal! Emerging from the bowels of the earth

Like a huge anal probe

To blow up entire cities!

You Black Metal steel cutter of throats

Deadly national ram(3)

Making red roses bleed (4),

You Black Metal sudden, I borrowed the wings

From the immense northern raven

To tear myself far away, towards nobler castles!