Mistral Gagnant, by Renaud. (French)
I grew up listening to his albums. His songs range from politically weighted to absurdly funny to absurdly sad (or all at once) so this is one of the emotional ones.
Here is a translation I made for it. I tried to get through the feelings this song brings me (often online translations are simply too literal). Hopefully it makes sense.
"To sit on a bench, five minutes with you,
To watch the people while they still are,
To tell you about the good old times,
Which are dead or coming back,
Holding in my hand your tiny fingers,
Feeding idiotic pigeons and kicking them for pretense,
And hear your laughter that cracks the walls,
That, notably, can heal my wounds.
To tell you a little bit how I was as a child,
The fabulous bonbecs (candy) we stole from the store,
Car en Sac et Minto (Haribo), one franc caramels,
And the winning Mistrals...
(Mistral were a kind of lottery candy, "gagnant" meaning "winning", meant you got another candy for free)
To walk under the rain, five minutes with you,
And look at the life while it is there,
To tell you the earth,
Adoring you with the eyes,
To talk about your mom a little and jump in the puddles to piss her off,
Ruin our shoes and have a great time.
And hear your laughter resounding as the sea; stopping and rolling back.
To tell you also, the Carambars of once upon a time, and the Coco-bèrs, the real Roudoudous that cut our lips and destroyed our teeth,
And the winning Mistrals.
To sit on a bench, five minutes with you,
Watching the sun going down,
To tell you about the good old times,
That are dead and I don't care,
To tell you that the baddies aren't us,
And if I am crazy, I'm only crazy of your eyes, because you have the advantage of having two.
And to hear your laughter fly as high as the squawking of birds.
To tell you finally, that life should be cherished,
And loved even though,
Time is murderous and departs
Taking with him the children's laughter,
And the winning Mistrals..."
