Cargo Culte [English translation]

Me, I know of shamans invoking the jets

In the jungle of New Guinea.

They stare at the Zenith, coveting the guineas

That they would earn from looting their freight.

On the Coral Sea, as the machine flies over,

Those creatures, not without reason,

Those Papuans await from the skies

The crash of the Viscount or that of the Comet.

And since their Totem could never bring down

To their feet no Boeing nor even a DC4

They dream of highjacks and of bird collisions.

Those naive shipwreckers, armed with blowpipes

Are thus sacrificing to the cult of the cargo

By blowing to the azure and to the airplanes.

Where are you, Melody? Is your dislocated body

Haunting the archipelago where the mermaids dwell?

Or hung to the cargo whose alarm bell

Is now silent, have you remained?

Carried by the currents, have you already touched

Those luminous corals of the Guinean coasts

Where are fretting in vain those indigenous sorcerers,

Still hoping for some broken planes?

Having nothing more to lose, nor God to turn to,

So that they give me back my derisory loves,

I, like them, have prayed to the night cargoes.

And I keep this fantasy of an aerial disaster

That would bring me back Melody

A minor diverted from the stellar attraction.

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