This is a magnificent yet tragic story of a melodramatic rose, told in music and lyrics written in both languages, French and English.
“A lifetime comes and goes,
and as my friend the rose said only yesterday:
This morning I was born and baptized in the dawn
I flowered in the dew and life was fresh and new.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NV8X7Dvn9Co
“Mon Amie la Rose“, by Françoise Hardy (wife of Jacques Dutronc. The couple has a child who’s also a singer: Thomas Dutronc), 1964
MON AMIE LA ROSE (In French)
On est bien peu de chose
Et mon amie la rose
Me l’a dit ce matin
À l’aurore je suis née
Baptisée de rosée
Je me suis épanouie
Heureuse et amoureuse
Aux rayons du soleil
Me suis fermée la nuit
Me suis réveillée vieille
Pourtant j’étais très belle
Oui j’étais la plus belle
Des fleurs de ton jardin
On est bien peu de chose
Et mon amie la rose
Me l’a dit ce matin
Vois le dieu qui m’a faite
Me fait courber la tête
Et je sens que je tombe
Et je sens que je tombe
Mon cœur est presque nu
J’ai le pied dans la tombe
Déjà je ne suis plus
Tu m’admirais hier
Et je serai poussière
Pour toujours demain
On est bien peu de chose
Et mon amie la rose
Est morte ce matin
La lune cette nuit
A veillé mon amie
Moi en rêve j’ai vu
Éblouissante et nue
Son âme qui dansait
Bien au-delà des nues
Et qui me souriait
Crois celui qui peut croire
Moi, j’ai besoin d’espoir
Sinon je ne suis rien
Ou bien si peu de chose
C’est mon amie la rose
Qui l’a dit hier matin
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jW0Vwqf8MU
In English (original lyrics)
A lifetime comes and goes
And as my friend the rose said only yesterday
“This morning I was born and baptised in the dawn
I flowered in the dew and life was fresh and new
The sun shone through the cold
And through the day I grew, by night-time I was old”
“At least there’s never been
No, you have never seen, a rose more bright and gay”
A lifetime comes and goes
And as my friend the rose said only yesterday
“The good lord smiled on me, so why then should it be
I feel I’m falling now, oh yes, I’m falling now
My heart no-one can save
My head begins to bow, my feet are in the grave”
The rose God smiled upon
Tomorrow will be gone, forever gone away
A lifetime comes and goes
And so my friend the rose was dead at break of day
The moon is shining bright and in my dreams tonight
Beneath the starlit sky, my friend the rose goes by
He has seen my dreams I see
A soul that wouldn’t die, still watching over me
Whatever fortune brings
I’ll hope for better things or life will just be grey
“A lifetime comes and goes”
That’s what my friend the rose said only yesterday.
