It's nothing but a song which comes back sometimes,
Only a smile, in memory of a boy from back then,
When my days are sad and dull1
and my life is full of snow2 it pops up3 in my memory
At the French secondary school4 one evening he was waiting for me
He was smiling, Nicolas.
Nicolas, Nicolas, my first tear was for you alone
We were children, our sorrow mattered as much as the grown ups'
Nicolas, Nicolas, it was love, we didn't know,
That's life, which picks us up,
Which leads us where it will and where it goes
A boy child, his eyes too big, on a platform, crying
It has snowed a lot5 since then, down there, in Paris
He know nothing about me or my life,
What I do, who I am,
He doesn't know6 the other Maritza, he still has the real one one down there.
Nicolas, Nicolas, my first grief has the same name as you
I knew that never would I come back here, close to you,
Nicolas, Nicolas it was love, we didn't know
It's time that passes by
That causes our sorrows and our joys
Nicolas, Nicolas, my first tear was for you alone
We were children, our sorrow mattered as much as the grown ups'
Nicolas, Nicolas, it was love, we didn't know,
That's life, which picks us up,
Which leads us where it will and where it goes
Nicolas, Nicolas....
1. literally: "are grey"2. lit: "it snows on my life"3. lit: "comes again"4. in American English: "high school"5. I think this mains "a lot of sad, dull days". Although it looks a bit like: "there'a been a lot of water under the bridge" French has that same idiom and the lyrics avoid it, which suggests that "snowed" here is a reference back to "snow in the first verse6. for any fellow Scots: this "know" is "ken"; the previous one was "know"