Contre vents et marées [English translation]

Forget appearances.

Silence

Is never still.

All expectations1 make sense.

Be confident.

Imagine

The forces around you.

Keep on trying.

Think about the goal, keep looking.

The world and you

Are subject to laws.

Ponder that every now and then

Before you dive in,

Before you dance,

Before you run your course,

Before your beautiful, obvious things,

Your violence

Fall to ruin.

A lot of mourning lies in store for you.

You just have to keep moving forward,

Looking at, without cheating,

The truth.2

Follow your path

No matter the cost

Against winds and tides,

Even if nothing survives these storms

That, as they pass, sweep away

The landmarks,

That douse the light.

In the black night,

Sooner or later,

A hope will shine bright

And spark your victory.

Arm yourself with patience.

Suffering

Is never pointless.

It builds in silence,

Knits the

Invisible threads3

Of another birth.

See the sea growing calm.

The sun in the trees

Dries your tears.

Be lively4, stay true

Against winds and tides.

1. Possibly "waiting." The same word in French can have either meaning and in this context, I can't make a strong case for either translation over the other.2. This has the sense of "Looking at the truth without cheating." But the sentence construction is a bit more poetic in the original French lyrics so I've tried to preserve that in the English translation.3. In French, the order of a noun & its adjective is often the opposite of what it is in English. So "fils invisible" becomes "invisible threads." I had to put the translation on different lines from what you can see in the original French lyrics.4. Or "alive" or "living"

• Artist:Françoise Hardy