La manifestation [English translation]

They arrived in camper vans

Shouting SOS Gaia

Dressed like hippies

With bloodshot eyes

Long hair and military surplus

Topless and playing the tam-tams

You'd have thought it was 30 years ago

During the Vietnam War

There was every cliche

From the tree-hugger era

From the macrame shirts

To the girls with hairy underarms

The majority of them were coming from

The Cégep du Vieux Montreal

All of them there to protest

Against the multinational companies

And the sparse crowd was shivering

On that cold Thursday in Spring

And the students cutting class

Were joined by a few passers-by

The Marxist-Leninists

The pot activists

And a couple of environmentalists

Took over the place

We were listening to the old crackpot

Who took himself for Castro

With his officer's hat

And his Rambo knife

And it soon became apparent

That he was missing a few screws

When he proposed we start

A limbo competition

At the protest

We dreamed of a revolution

Freezing our asses with a handful of accomplices

In the cold rain of March

On the René-Lévesque boulevard

They unleashed the riot control

And the police officers on their bikes

In order to control the mob

It was carried out peacefully

Without much grating on the system

And we were chanting great slogans

Against the GMOs

When suddenly there arrived

A group of kids, a bit extremist

Masked and dressed like ninjas

Proclaiming themselves activists

Like little Che Guevaras

They tossed 2-3 firecrackers

And the cops descended on them

I assure you, they didn't stay up late that night

At the protest

We dreamed of a revolution

Freezing our asses with a handful of accomplices

In the cold rain of March

And then everything got out of hand

Because under pretense of protesting

The beatniks got undressed

In order to start a dance-o-thon

The police with their fancy guns

Took out their handcuffs and batons

And started beating up the hippies

With decisive and unexpected blows

While the environmentalists

Wept before such abuse

Imploring Jesus Christ

To stop the injustice

You could hear the dog barking

Through the noise of the sirens

Suffocated by the smoke

Of the tear gas

Meanwhile the gang of beatniks

Dancing naked in the rain

Was like a remake of Grease

The hillbilly version

When the sky broke loose

And it started to pour

They took to their heels

And it was over

So we came home disappointed

Soaking wet and dejected

And when we ran into the éco-freaks

In the entrance of McDonalds

I came to the conclusion

That it will take a hell of a lot

And it's certainly not tomorrow

That we're going to start our revolution

At the protest

It's true we didn't change anything

All we caused was a traffic jam

But hey, at least we managed that!

• Artist:Les Cowboys fringants
• Album:Break syndical (2002)