Le petit chat est mort [English translation]

Don't cry

He used to walk around

He had no collar

He was free to go

And come back to eat

He wasn't even a prisoner

Of your foolish love

You wouldn't have wanted him

Wanted him to live like an idiot

On the sofa,

Far from the gutters, the pigeons

He was an adventurer,

You wouldn't have wanted him to be tied up ;

He would've meowed: "Down with the pigs!"

The little cat is dead ;

He fell from the roof.

That's how it is,

He slipped on I don't know what

And bang.

We'll bury him tomorrow, I swear

In a pretty shoebox.

The little cat is dead

And you and I are going back and forth.

He was a real fleabag,

Even more free than a dog,

Not the kind to lick your hand

For a cube of sugar.

But liberty, you see

Isn't safe, that's why

It doesn't run in the streets, nor on the roofs.

He was a real titi,

The terror of the little birds

At night, he became grey

To munch them warm.

It's a little bit contemptible

But you never ate a sparrow,

It's not more gross than MacDonald's.

The little cat is dead ;

He fell from the roof.

That's what it is,

He slipped on I don't know what

And bang.

We will go to a garden tomorrow

To bury him at the foot of a wooden tree.

The little cat is dead

And you and I are going

Back and forth.

Why? Because we wonder why.

You've never seen a pope on the roofs,

Maybe they don't like being too close to the sky.

• Artist:Renaud
• Album:À la Belle de Mai (1994)