Joyeux calvaire! [English translation]

This is the story of Loulou Lapierre

A young mother quite ordinary

Who works part-time

As a maid in a hotel

And endures in her little two-bedroom

The sad life of rent-controlled housing

And of mornings always bleak

She isn't even twenty-five

And already has three children

From two different fathers

That vanished into thin air

Leaving her in misery

Without child support ...

Happy suffering!

Beneath a roughcast sky

Between the cases of beer

And the children's toys

Happy suffering!

For Loulou Lapierre

Who'd just as well tell herself

That after all, life isn't so bad...

She's living with a jackass

A jerk who's always drunk

And who plays video games

Doing nothing all day

He sleeps off all his afternoons

And at night he goes out with his friends

To dance the rumba all night

He hates children

In fact he yells at them all the time

And blows a fuse left and right

But when she says she's going to leave him

He starts to beg her

Like a scum with no pride...

Happy suffering!

Beneath a roughcast sky

Between the cases of beer

And the children's toys

Happy suffering!

For Loulou Lapierre

Who'd just as well tell herself

That after all, life isn't so bad...

When she's had enough

Of her life filled with dark clouds

She comes over to drink tea

Away from the noise and the bickering

We laugh, we gossip about our problems

We whine a bit against the system

Which always favours the same people

We tell ourselves that one morning

Given how much we like each other

We should go far away

And in a burst of laughter

She always ends up telling me

That it couldn't get any worse!

Happy suffering!

Beneath a roughcast sky

Between the cases of beer

And the children's toys

Happy suffering!

For Loulou Lapierre

Who'd just as well tell herself

That one day, we're going to pull through