Rochechouart [English translation]

Driving nails into my brain

as the last métro wails

Pigalle by night, I write (about) you

from1 the métro of melancholies

Streets stink and smell of flowers

of the evil2 you bestowed upon my heart.

A bin truck on Rochechouart Bld.

There are suns on my bike3

Here I am at your front door yet again,

chasing every odd cat,

your name tatooed in sweat4

at the tip of my arm.

Driving nails into my brain

and even though I have you under my skin

the streets are dead and I just write

to shake the sleepyheads awake.

Pigalle by night, I have had too much booze

Sexiness crawls under the cobblestones,

inside the girls, at the bottom of things.

We all end up with an overdose.

In my phoney5 sleepless nights

all is rotten at Blanche station.

I cried your name on the platforms,

drinking to the drown love stories.

It's 5 AM6, the garbagemen are

emptying the hearts of weeping cities

It's 5 AM, I'm feeling sick

It's 5 AM, it's 5 AM

On the platforms I took a beating.

I played my drums too loud

Blue rivers inside my eyes

Louse traps for our farewells

There are pills to forget about you,

paradises in parties

Paris done for, Paris rotten,

my insomnia, you left me.

Me , I thought I saw lights

at the lightship of your eyelids

Streets stink and smell of flowers

of the evil you bestowed upon my heart.

A bin truck on Rochechouart Bld.

There are suns on my bike

Here I am at your front door yet again,

chasing every odd cat,

your name tatooed in sweat

at the tip of my arm.

Pigalle by night, I have had too much booze

Sexiness crawls under the cobblestones,

inside the girls, at the bottom of things.

We all end up with an overdose.

In my phoney sleepless nights

all is rotten at Blanche station.

I cried your name on the platforms,

drinking to the drown love stories.

It's 5 AM, the garbagemen are

emptying the hearts of weeping cities

It's 5 AM, I'm feeling sick

It's 5 AM, it's 5 AM

1. "au" is one of Saez's manierisms. It can mean a few different things, including "using", "with", "in", "at", "on a background of". Any vague relation between two things, really2. obvious allusion to Baudelaire's "les fleurs du mal", but rather awkwardly done, if you ask me3. probably just there for the soleil/solex alliteration4. rather lame pun on "encre de Chine" (black ink) and "échine" (back, spine). "encre d'échine" would be "ink from the spine", which makes no sense, really. I settled for "sweat" instead5. "travesti" can also mean "cross-dresser", that just adds to the bleakness of the mood6. A (cheap) wink to this famous song