Translation With Commentary of On Est Les Oublies By T Wignesan
Translation of « On est les oubliés » (They/We are the neglected and forgotten lot)
by the songster-poet Gauvin SERS
(For the last two years, this young unassuming Frenchman, full of verve and disarming airs has been making his quiet ways around the provinces in Pas-de-Calais and Bretagne/Brittany. Now, this song is making its own way up the charts for his championing of a cause: the neglect of the far-flung regions from the French capital. The tone of the song is not patently and virulently demanding of reform; it merely resorts through an attitude of resignation to upholding and exposing a truth that cannot be denied. Four backup videos root the cause in Ponthoile village and the teacher Jean-Luc MASSALAN features in them with his students. T. Wignesan)
Devant le portail vert de son école primaire
(Standing in front of the green gate of his primary school)
On l'reconnaît tout d’suite (It’s easy to see at one glance)
Toujours la même dégaine avec son pull en laine
(Always looking oddly the same, clad in his woolen pullover)
On sait qu'il est instit
(Little the doubt he’s the Teach')
Il pleure la fermeture à la rentrée future
(He laments the closing down when school resumes for the next year)
De ses deux dernières classes
(Of his two last/lowest classes)
Il paraît qu'le motif c'est le manque d’effectif
(It seems the reason's the lack of enough students)
Mais on sait bien c'qui s’passe
(But one knows in one’s heart the real cause)
Refrain:
On est les oubliés
(We are the forgotten lot)
La campagne, les paumés
(The countryside, those in want)
Les trop loin de Paris
(Those who live far too far from Paris)
Le cadet d'leurs soucis
(The ones who they hardly bother about)
À vouloir regrouper les cantons d'à côté en 30 élèves par salle
(By wanting to re-group in the districts nearby classes crammed with thirty children each)
Cette même philosophie qui transforme le pays en un centre commercial
(That same philosophy destined to convert the country into a grand shopping mall)
Ça leur a pas suffit qu'on ait plus d’épicerie
(It didn’t make them happy enough to watch the only grocery pull down its shutters for good)
Que les médecins se fassent la malle
(Nor to see local doctors pack their bags to leave)
Y a plus personne en ville, y a que les banques qui brillent dans la rue principale
(There’s hardly a soul moving about the vicinity, short of the banks which shine in the main road)
Refrain:
On est les oubliés
(We are the forgotten lot)
La campagne, les paumés
(The countryside, those in want)
Les trop loin de Paris
(Those who live far too far from Paris)
Le cadet d'leurs soucis
(The ones who they hardly bother about)
On est les oubliés
(We are the forgotten lot)
Qu'il est triste le patelin avec tous ces ronds-points
(How sad it is to live in the back of beyond with all these roundabouts)
Qui font tourner les têtes
(Which make one’s head reel around)
Qu'il est triste le préau sans les cris des marmots
(How depressing to find the covered school yard devoid of the cries of kids)
Les ballons dans les fenêtres
(Balls dashing on window-panes)
Même la p'tite boulangère se demande c'qu'elle va faire
(Even the little baker-woman wonders what would become of her)
De ses bon-becs qui collent
(Her sweet mouthfuls remain stuck one to the other)
Même la voisine d'en face elle a peur, ça l’angoisse
(Even the neighbour woman opposite takes fright, seized by anguish uptight)
Ce silence dans l’école
(Due to the silence reigning in the school)
Refrain:
On est les oubliés
La campagne, les paumés
Les trop loin de Paris
Le cadet d'leurs soucis
Quand dans les plus hautes sphères couloirs du ministère
(When in the high echelons and corridors of ministerial power)
Les élèves sont des chiffres
(The students are but mere numbers)
Y a des gens sur l'terrain, de la craie plein les mains
(The people on the spot, their hands full of chalk dust)
Qu'on prend pour des sous-fifres
(Whom they consider mere underlings)
Ceux qui ferment les écoles, les cravatés du col
(Those who shut down schools, neck-ties around high-collars)
Sont bien souvent de ceux
(Oftentimes they are those)
Ceux qui n'verront jamais ni de loin ni de près
(Who'll never have whether close-up or from a distance)
Un enfant dans les yeux
(Ever looked a child in the eyes)
Refrain:
On est les oubliés
La campagne, les paumés
Les trop loin de Paris
Le cadet de leur soucis
On est troisième couteau
(One’s an absolute nobody)
Dernière part du gâteau
(The last to be served)
La campagne, les paumés
On est les oubliés
Devant le portail vert de son école primaire
(Standing there in front of the green school gate)
Y a l'instit du village
(You can espy the village Teach’)
Toute sa vie, des gamins
(All his life, devoted to children)
Leur construire un lendemain
(In order to prepare for them
a stolid future)
Il doit tourner la page
(Yet he has to turn the page)
On est les oubliés
(For his lot’s too the forgotten lot)
(c) Translation and comments: T. Wignesan - Paris, May 25, 2019
Songwriters: Gauvain Thibaut Sers
Les oubliés lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Copyright © T Wignesan | Year Posted 2019
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