Cargo Culte [English translation]

I know of sorcerers who call upon jet airplanes

In the jungle of New Guinea

They scrutinise the skies coveting the treasure

The pillage of the freight will bring

Watching the plane passing over the Coral Sea

These Papuan creatures not lacking reason

Wait for Viscounts or Comets

To fall from the thick clouds

Their totem having never been able to bring down

Either a Boeing or even a DC-4 to their feet

They dream of hijacks and bird crashes

Naïve plunderers armed with blowpipes

Sacrificing to the cult of the cargo

Blowing away the planes in the skies

Where are you Melody, is your broken body

Haunting the archipelago inhabited by sirens

Or got trapped in the cargo whose alarm

Has fallen silent, are you still drifting

Along the currents, have you touched yet

The bright corals of the Guinean coasts

Where native sorcerers skitter in vain

Still hoping for crashing planes

Having nothing more to lose or a God to believe in,

Like them, I prayed to the night cargo flights

To get my derisory love back with me again

And I keep hoping for an air disaster

That would bring me Melody back

Juvenile girl veered off the disastrous attraction.

• Artist:Serge Gainsbourg
• Album:La Ballade de Melody Nelson