Il fannullone [English translation]

You know I don't like to exaggerate

but I'll often be sleeping for twelve hours straight

And that is the reason why all through the slum

The people who know me, know I'm a bum

The good people that know me don't give me strife

for they know I'll never do a thing in my life

While you wander the streets all through the night

scheming your dreams of glory and spite,

telling your tales to a few weary men

their empty glazed stares or they're laughing again

You play out for the others your annoying roles

as through life, like a comedy, you stroll

It's not that I haven't tried to work

With my best efforts, I wouldn't shirk

but the only results these attempts carved

was to leave me, tragically, even more starved

The good people that know me, they don't resent

that the fetters of work are for me a torment

They gave you employment at a large bistro

washing the plates of the rich, an elegant show

but you said "the sky above is my only fortune

and the dish water is not reflecting the moon "

You returned to sing stories by the roadside at night

your hair full of straw and your shoes full of mites

And I'll never be that repugnant mutt,

without morals and clothes torn up or cut,

happy to take away scraps and old bones,

thrown with loving and contemptuous tones.

The bum knows how to make your heart beat race,

the stray dog ​​has found his true love's face

You thought of marriage as the turn of a dance

You loved your woman like a summer romance

you took to your home to hide from your languor

for a coat rack to hang up your jacket in anger

and as your sweet wife began to console her sadness

she looked for company to attenuate the madness

And she left one day without making a sound

perhaps singing of love, her feet light on the ground

She'd sing it to a world by now weary of love

which distractedly watched from the side or above

but she will return on a cold summer's night

and the stars will applaud, by now not so bright

the streetlights on high shall light up their way

the strange dance of of two bums, ever more stray

the distant moon rising will be silvery-white

and shine on a pair of black cats in the night

• Artist:Fabrizio De André
• Album:Il fannullone/Carlo Martello ritorna dalla battaglia di Poitiers (1963)