Le garçon triste [English translation]

It's a sad boy

who knows what waiting means.

He's a forsaken kid,

a sad boy indeed.

And his tinker heart

knows no compromise1

Like all sad boys,

he makes things up, he rebels

to get himself noticed,

as if sadness,

this evil witch,

had cast him into the air.

And like all sad boys

he keeps drawing things

to find solace in them.

A shudder, a delight,

a moment, a shelter,

something to dream about.

I love this sad boy,

the way he seems to

apologize with each smile.

I love his capacity to believe,

how he knows how to marvel

at simply being alive.

I'm singing of a sad boy

who puts on airs

to avoid drowning.

Like all sad boys

he loves to act the though guy

and the king of the block.

And then this sad boy

came into my life.

He messed everything up.

My dreams and their sketches,

my memories, my own things2,

he took everything away.

It is for a sad boy

that I lay down my weapons

softly at his feet.

And for this sad boy

I'm willing to suffer,

I'm willing to shudder.

He's like a promise

He's like a racket

He's my castaway,

He's my only tenderness,

my love, my alarm,

my child, my sin.

Mmm mmm

Mmm mmm

He's like a promise

He's like a racket

He's my castaway,

He's my only tenderness,

my love, my alarm,

my prince and my sin.

1. lit. "[is to be] taken [whole] or not taken [at all]". That's idiomatic for a non negociable offer2. the word has a few different meanings, but this one seems the most likely to me