La ballade des gens qui sont nés quelque part [English translation]

It's true that they are pleasant, all these little villages, all

these market towns, these hamlets, these localities, these cities,

with their fortified castles, their churches, their beaches,

they have only one weakness and that is being inhabited,

and it's being inhabited by people who look on

all others with contempt from the top of their ramparts,

the race of chauvinists, the rosette wearers,

the complacent idiots who were born in some place.(twice)

A curse on these children of their mother countries

impaled once for all on their steeples,

who show you their towers, their museums, their town halls,

show you round their native land until you go cross-eyed.

Whether they come from Paris, or from Rome, or from Sète,

or from Nowhere Land1 or perhaps from Zanzibar,

or even from Montcuq2 they're proud of that, my God,

the complacent idiots who were born in some place.(twice)

The sand in which, being softies, their ostriches

bury their heads, you won't find any finer,

as for the air they employ to inflate their balloons,

their soap bubbles, it's divine inspiration.

And little by little, there they are, winding themsleves

up to the point of thinking that the dung produced by

their horses, even the wooden ones, makes everyone jealous,

the complacent idiots who were born in some place.(twice)

It's no common place3 the one where they were born,

they are wholeheartedly sorry for the misfortunate youngsters,

the clumsy young people who didn't have the foresight,

the presence of mind to be born in their home town.

When the warning bell sounds for their precarious happiness,

against all the more or less barbarous foreigners,

they come out from their holes to die in the war,

the complacent idiots who were born in some place.(twice)

My God, it would be good for mankind's world

if we didn't meet this unseemly race,

this troublesome race which is everywhere abundant,

the race of people with local roots, of local people.

How beautiful life would be in all circumstances

if you hadn't pulled all these deluded fools out of the void,

which may well be proof of your non-existence:

the complacent idiots who were born in some place.(twice)

1. or "the middle of nowhere"2. Montcuq is a town whose name sounds rather similar to "mon cul", which translates roughly as "my arse"; a clever singer can sing it in such a way that you can't be sure whether he sings "Montcuq" or "mon cul"3. maybe Brassens is punning here - "shared place", "ordinary place" and "platitude" are all possible meanings of "lieu commun"