(The sound of a heartbeat)

 

This tune that obsesses me day and night

This tune wasn't born today

It comes from further than I come

Dragged by a hundred thousand musicians

One day this tune will drive me mad

A hundred times I wanted to say, “Why?”

But it cut off my words

It speaks always before me

And it's voice drowns out mine

 

Padam, Padam, Padam

It begins running up behind me

Padam, padam, padam

It hits me with “Remember!”

Padam, padam, padam

It's a tune that points a finger at me

And I drag [it] after me like an odd mistake

This tune that knows all by heart

 

It says, “Remember your loves,

Remember, since it is your turn.

There's no reason you shouldn't cry

With all these memories in your arms!"

These [memories] stay with me, I see them again

My twenty years beat a drum

I see battling gestures [They seem to be showing one thing, while doing another]--

All the comedy of love--

In this tune that goes on and on

 

Padam, padam, padam

The “I love you”s of the 14th of July (Bastille Day)

Padam, padam, padam

The “Always!” that one buys on the cheap

Padam, padam, padam

Boxes of “Would you like to's?”

And all that to just find at the corner of the street

The tune that recognizes me.

 

Listen to the cacophony it makes in me

It's as if my entire past had marched by!

Save sorrow for later!

I have notes full of it in this tune that beats,

that beats like a heart of wood!