Le bûcheron [English translation]

It was needed that a woodcutter awakes one day,

That he'd fell a beautiful cypress tree and sell it to a sawmill,

That a wood lover, in order to see the sap dry,

Wait patiently for half of his life.

It was needed that a boat hauls it one day

And that an old craftsman will like it better than a fir tree,

For me to stop finally at his door step

And that with a smile he shook my hand.

That's how, this evening, I play my guitar

The incredible journey across the years

Of a grain blown by a derisory wind

So it becomes a guitar, in the back of a workshop.

It's the chain without end of innumerable details

Which makes our days and resemble destiny,

Which sends the rain upon deserts of sand

And make flowers thrive in my garden.

Everyone of them is just a link in this immense chain

And my life is but a lost speck on the horizon

But it was needed the love of an entire existence

So that a dying tree shall become a song

Whose words, by chance, trough bizarre paths

Will find their happiness at the end of our suffering

And time, little by little, falls asleep in our memories

So we shall forget that at the beginning of the road

There is the chain without end of innumerable details

Which makes our days and resemble destiny,

Which sends the rain upon sand deserts

And makes music spurt out of the musicians' fingers.

I was just a link in this immense chain

And my life is but a lost speck on the horizon

But it was needed the love of an entire existence

So that a dying tree shall become a song.

But it was needed the love of an entire existence

So that a dying tree shall become a song.

• Artist:Yves Duteil
• Album:J'ai la guitare qui me démange (1979)