Les Vidanges du diable [English translation]

I gathered together the cushions

Scattered a few flowers around

I made a box

With some shoddy velvet

I had a little perfume left, a little perfume

A few emergency candles

We’re going to hide ourselves in a corner

A veil over the lampshade

You’re all I have left, love

Outside it’s unbearable!

Take me away

Far from the devil’s sewage, somewhere 1

Downstairs there’s a load of kids

Loads of balls in the courtyard

They yell from evening to morning

It’s enough to make you deaf

I’m going to cover it in drawings… 2

This city of no return

The future is so far away

The present is so heavy

You’re all I have left, love

Outside it’s unbearable!

Take me away

Far from the devil’s sewage, somewhere

Somewhere else I would have work, labour

I’d become respectable again

Somewhere else, for a few day, a few hours

To show them that I can do it

I have nothing to do with my hands

Nothing to do with chatter

I don’t have the luck that some do

I drew the short straw 3

But, I gathered together the cushions

Scattered a few flowers around

We’re going to hide ourselves in a corner

A veil over the lampshade

You’re all I have left, love

Outside it’s unbearable!

Take me away

Far from the devil’s sewage, somewhere

Far from the devil’s sewage

1. Sewage, sewer outflow, detritus, rubbish - I think he just mean the unpleasantness of the world he finds himself in 2. it sounds like he sings "de dessins de tes seins" - drawings of your breasts. In which case he means he's going to blot out the outside world with images of her breasts. And why not? 3. literally "the wrong path"