Source:
http://www.last.fm/user/DeathOfBalance/journal/2009/08/08/2xa96l_gris_-_il_%C3%A9tait_une_for%C3%AAt..._english_translation

translator: DeathOfBalance

hard to link to because of the darn ....... in the URL makes for bad copy and pasting and archive.is is giving me a 502 error on this page.



DeathOfBalance
Journal → Gris - Il était une forêt... English translation
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8 Aug 2009, 04:15

Well, I decided to translate the lyrics of Gris' wonderful album Il était une forêt... for all you people who love this album but don't speak French. I did this to the best of my knowledge and capacities but I am no expert translator, so feel free to point out if there is something that does not feel quite right to you. Also, keep in mind that a lot of the French language's intrinsic beauty is lost in translation, but at least you should get a good grasp of Gris' lyrical themes in general.

1. There Was a Forest…

There was a forest
Where mankind's cupidity
Was the mere shadow of a an oppressive past

There was a forest
Where the trees' bark
Reflected the beauty of a lost world

There was a forest
Where the night's song
Awakened the sun of another life

There was a forest
Where the skies' sanctuary
Watered the dried up lands of the gods

There was a forest…
There was a forest…
There was a forest…
There was a forest…

2. The Reception of the Happy People

Be quiet… be quiet… shut up…
Emphatic larvae… you defecate with your mouths… and you drown me in your dejections…
To disappear… to disappear elsewhere…
Far… very far… too far…

It is a vicious orchestra that plays its popular symphony tonight
It knows how to strum the sensitive strings of the sleeping slugs
These foul and dribbling wounds that, tonight, drive me
To join, in spite of myself, those dumping ground musicians

It is a damned orchestra that accompanies my suicide
The violinists are mutilated and dressed in grey trousers; their eye-sockets are empty
The woodwind players are tramps, brown and drugged to the bone
Their burning lips, as they blow into their reeds, produce rattling sounds

The timpanist bludgeons children with his erected genitals
The brass instruments splutter the echoes of the dying herd's laughter
The cymbals relate the disgusting rape of an exemplary woman
Accompanied by a schizophrenic man with a bright snare drum

The height of horror is the sight of the audience of those demonic harmonies
A contemptible and repulsive nation, serve them all the ammonia
With a crepuscular gaze, they assist to the eradication of the beautiful values
But they pay not to see well, they leave aside their own hearts

The obnoxious armor of a scale with sordid agitations
Imposes atrocious nuances of flats on the Ode to Joy
Their shadows speak and mate around my brain
Be damned, bastard beasts, I will drown you in my sobs

But in this dissonant crowd where the abhorrent madness
Poisons everybody as soon as they sit down at the table
The wisest is ironically the conductor, austere metronome
That is my hanged body, swinging the measure at the gates of hell

3. Scar

So many times I have wanted to put an end
To this impenetrable darkness that is life
To this lake of tears and blood that is my bruised existence

So many times, I have seen the shadow of this rope
On the wall of my overburdened and grey remorse
Inviting me to its macabre dance
The one that would free me of the rough sea of my madness

My wounds are bleeding once again
Bringing me back into the limbs of the past
Violently hammering at my heart
Shooting its venom into the deepest of its dungeons

Yet I can never resist
Seeing your gracious and distorted face again
You, monster of a thousand cruel shapes
The one that men name and fear, eternal unhappiness

Kill me, kill me, I beg you
Rip apart my sickening and moldy flesh
Torture my head, impose your pain on it
Until death dries out my tears

Bring my vulnerability to agony
Chain hate and contempt to my martyr
Consume my essence, lead it to the throes of anxiety
Drag my heart to the gallows and drape me in solitude

Let me contemplate the cold marble of my tomb
Abandon myself to this stream that is infected with deep bitterness
Take me away forever in the limbs of saving extinction
In Gehenna and in sinister processions

Scar, lay down your veil on my sick soul
Bring it horror no more, but beauty instead
Offer it a beauty so splendid that death shall strike who dares contemplate it

Offer it a beauty so splendid that death shall strike who dares contemplate it…

4. Would You Like to Dance?

I am but the shadow of a shadow, which struts idly
On the shimmering flagstones of the long and triumphant pavements
Nobody can believe me, and no one would know how to see me
I already hear her replying to me: "what about me?"

You cannot touch me for I bear the worst of infections
I spread it to all those I love at the will of my impulsions
I have never wanted to propagate this abhorrent bacterium
Forgive me; I should never have stayed plastered in your lives

Why did I have to be possessed of this terrible curse?
This horrible syndrome that is to love with an unspeakable force
But above all, why did you love me in return?
Me, the poor magician who failed his last trick

Who am I? Where do I come from? Where am I going?
All of this is as clear to me as a sob in the snow
The accordion no longer plays its joyful chords
And it has spit its last sinister note on my head

Solitude becomes enamored of my heart
Flayed by my crying musings
My soul is stabbed by its hundred thousand daggers
Ripped apart by its countless razors

What about you? Do you still want to melt into my tumid heart?
To tell me that you still dance with life as long as it lets you lead?
The dance floor is more slippery for me who has never been there
You do not know who I am; me neither, but this is how I am named:

I am the disguised ugliness and the badly dressed happiness
I am the cured plague and the slashed joy
I am the dilapidated cross and the badly forged nail
I am the atheist Jesus and the wacko Buddha

5. Deep Misanthropy

In the misty forests,
I have wandered far from your tainted kingdoms

Under the icy rains,
I have wandered far from your damned race

In the dark mountains,
The winds have caressed my face

Under the grey and dreary sky,
My soul rests in eternal sleep

In solitude, my corpse lies
Dead far away from your impure lands

Death in silence…

6. The Dryad

[Instrumental]