Sur la tête de ma mère [English translation]

You'll understand why I never swear it on my mother's head...1

It's worth way too much...

Fortunately...

Fortunately, we don't inherit our father's balls

Or else I'd be in a shitty position, so I put a crown of diamonds on my mother's head, I have something in my blood that would make France freak out. My story is indecent, it begins in Roubaix in 1950, here is my blood, my story. It stank of victory ever since the very beginning, from the daughter all the way back to the grandmother, in my family bad luck is forbidden.

They've got guts, the women of my kind, they're grand, they've got a temper, they're beautiful so others tremble before them.

21 years old, my blood runs off to where The Beatles are, picnic, little lonely woman getting married in 48 hours. He's a violent warrior from the Middle East with a Middle Ages behaviour, Mommy is always at war.

Over there in Cyprus, if you're a woman then you polish furniture and even if you're my mother, you either divorce or shut the hell up. So you dream of journeys, you believe in it and you insist and thanks to God, you leave and get settled in the Persian Gulf.

[Chorus]

I have in my blood something that would make France tremble

From Roubaix to Lebanon, from Nice through Oman

Whoever you might be, you can't test me, I'm the daughter of a warrior, so put a crown of diamonds on my mother's head

On my mother's head [x3]

My mother's head [x2]

1, 9, 7, 4. The Kurds are coming, coming to plunder the country, a coup d'état and boom, Cyprus looks like Palestine. My family is the civilian army, everyone is shooting, everyone is losing, the UN gets into the army and draws a line with a green pen.

2009, I pay tribute to my people who fell under the bombs. I was born in the last divided capital of the world so my blood runs off to Oman, in need of someplace else. I knew she was a driver in the Dhofar desert.

Mommy is bored and tries to get by and to occupy her weekends she shoots tin cans with AK-47s and M16s.

They wonder why I kill it when I get into the recording booth, it's normal, since I was a kid around me people shot with rifles.

From Oman, it's a shame for the Bedouins, goodbye Abou Dhabi, in Iran or in Dubai she has no doubt, the Orient is her life. Later on she finds some work in the country of defeat, transferred to Lebanon, my blood is on its way to Beirut.

[Chorus]

I have in my blood something that would make France tremble

From Roubaix to Lebanon, from Nice through Oman

Whoever you might be, you can't test me, I'm the daughter of a warrior, so put a crown of diamonds on my mother's head

On my mother's head [x3]

My mother's head [x2]

7, 8. My blood lives amongst the ruins of a country stuck in a civilian war. The soldiers come from Syria, we're not really in the country of the little ones anymore, so she finds a semi-detached house west of Beyrouth. On the radio of the Kataëb party, christian milice from Gemayel, Mommy lives through the neighborhood war, she can't get out without her papers anymore, a submachine gun takes hold of her. Afraid, mom is mobbed, already yesterday snipers had fired her wall down. Mommy lives in the cellar because the French Embassy doesn't answer anymore.

Outside there are shots coming from every direction, Mommy is shocked, Daddy never goes out without is Glock, Glock or else it stinks of death.

In the cellar we're crying, we're reciting praise, a cease fire and here we go, Mommy crawls up to her room.

Outside it's the Apocalypse, the fire, the smoke, the corpses. Mommy mourns her Lebanon and the horror which adorns it.

My father spots some cameras, journalists take advantage of the calm to film the destruction so she jumps into their van, Westbound to where life is going on as usual. Just some kilometers away, on the other side, people laugh, people play.

More than 2000 shells were shot each hour in the East, just like if in the West happiness had changed sides

Traumatized by war, my mother is the most remarkable one, even though every time the thunder rumbles Mommy hides under the table

You make me laugh, Mommy, you're not saying anything but I know it, they all think you're stupid, those French employers. Let me pay tribute to you, so everyone knows that behind me is hidden a couragous woman who bleeds herself to death working. And if I die tomorrow, know that no one on this Earth has the right to take away that crown of flowers on your head

On my mother's head...

On my mother's head...

On my mother's head, my mother's head, my mother's, my mother's head

On your mother's head (put a crown of flowers)

On your mother's head (put some recognition)

On your mother's head, your mother's head, your mother's head

I have in my blood something that would make France tremble

From Roubaix to Lebanon, from Nice through Oman

Neither a man nor a tyrant, no no, nor the parliament would be able to test my mother's devotion

I'm not there to make the households cry, when I talk about her, my accomplice, my role model, the only for whom I could kill you. Whoever you might be, you can't test me, I'm the daughter of a warrior, so put a crown of diamonds on my mother's head

She's the most beautiful one

She's the nicest one

She's the most couragous one

She's the most remarkable woman in the whole world...

And that's why I never swear it on my mother's head

1. I think the correct English wording would be 'on my mother's life', but I decided to use 'head' anyway not to ruin the puns in the song.