L'espoir [English translation]

Hope is taking to the street

Victory at flower-point 1

A rainbow grows in your stomach

With your mouth wide open onwards, onwards

You no longer fear them the thieves, the impostors, the killers of joy

You’ll link hands

Until, until, until the walls come down

With your seventeen years and with this new day

Just at your fingertips

Hope, it’s that delicious sensation

That fills your belly, this enormous sun

When I hear near to you all these thousands chanting

To the stars, to the stars

I’ll come with you sliding towards love

I’ll come forever to seek my seventeen year old self

At the heart of your hope fresh as an early morning

Hope is all around, hope

I will come and smile and cry at your side

With a clenched fist, I’ll taste the diamond

Of pure joy drawn from you eyes so full of love

And of your seventeen years

You are hope don’t give anything up, never

They will fold, frightened under your beauty, under your laughter

And under your cries that rise up from the street to eternity

That will always rise up

And I sniff, happy like a magnificent dog

The stardust that you sow, so proudly

In my heart and all around, hope

Hope is always there

To your knees horror, to your knees thieves of joy

Youth is truly here

And you must step aside, this day does not belong to you

Hope is a flag planted in your guts

Hope is taking to the street

Victory at flower-point

A rainbow grows in your stomach

With your mouth wide open onwards, onwards

You no longer fear them, the thieves, the impostors, the killers of joy

You’ll link hands hand until, until

Until the walls come down, with your seventeen years

And with this new day just at your fingertips

1. This plays on two French expressions: la victoire au bout du fusil - Victory at gun point, and la fleur au fusil - with a flower in the rifle, meaning with an innocent, happy naivety. The idea here is a victory won without violence.

• Artist:Cali
• Album:L'espoir