My small company
Doesn't know crisis.
Flourishing, it shows off
Silky treasures
Golden as desired.
I order an expertise
But the truth's wearing me out,
Tirelessly reveals itself.
And my fingers to palpate, 1
Palpate there this epidermis
That makes me stand up,
That makes me work
The Monday,
The Tuesday,
The Wednesday,
The Thursday,
The Friday,
From dawn to dawn,
Part of the morning,
And for vacations;
Abstinence.
My small company,
My locomotive
Goes on in defiance of semaphores,2
Pulls me out of nothingness.
Whatever
Love matters
Whatever
Love is exported
Whatever
Door to door
In Crimea,
South of Burma,
Lobbies in Libya,
In Laos,
Asia flows to my ears.
My small company
Doesn't know crisis,
Expose itself to the firmament,
Suggest the return-to-work,
Hiring,
De-hiring,3
Tirelessly reveals itself.
And my fingers to palpate,
Palpate there this epidermis
That makes me row
That makes me knock
At each level
Staircase C
Building B
At the edge of his/her/its lips4
Whatever
Love matters
Whatever
Love is exported
I'm losing the north
At Cape Horn
When I see coming up
The pyramids
Nose to nose
My whims
Asia flows to my ears
My small company
Doesn't know the crisis
Flourishing, it shows off
Silky treasures
Golden as desired.
The Monday,
The Tuesday,
The Wednesday,
The Thursday,
The Friday,
From dawn to dawn,
1. Palpate: I deliberately kept the term "palpate" used by the author because regardless of its primary definition which involves touching of a person to examine (as a doctor would do with a patient for example) with skin contact. But also like a leather-worker feels the skins to estimate their quality (the first meaning of the song). it's necessary also to know that there's a very popular slang expression in France: "Palper de la monnaie" which means "to collect money", "win a lot of money".2. semaphores is a linguistic "pretty much" (an "à-peu-près" in French), a kind of word game shifted by phonetics between "semaphore" and "serre-moi fort" (hold me tight). But it's also an ancient slang word used in old French to designate the police and more particularly their flashing lights. A "semaphore" in French is a post established on the coast, making it possible to communicate by optical signals with ships, a kind of coastal lighthouse so (for militaries). If we, therefore, combine here the shape of a lighthouse and the roughly "hold me tight" (sémaphore - serre-moi fort) at the same time, the allegory reveals all its power when now we know the hidden meaning of the song (If you want to know the hidden meaning of this song, please read the explanations I give a little further down the page, below these lyrics.), does it? :)3. De-hiring (débaucher, licencier in French): Here author wisely uses the word "débauche" which in French may as well mean "dismiss", "fired" (fired by its company for professional misconduct for example) in sense of "lay off" than to signify "debauchery".
In French "débauche" works the same for both.4. "ses" (her/his/its) is plural possessive adjective. In French, it doesn't have a gender. Or rather, it has all genders. It will therefore be feminine if it's of a woman in question or masculine in case of a man or be indefinite if it's an object, thing, etc. (here narrator doesn't precise).