Le zoo de Vincennes [English translation]

The rhinoceros of Vincennes' zoo

Its skin is a bark that cracks , it hangs around

Monstrous unicorn with eyelids of clay

Painful mastodon with no hope to change

Elder , a pen of old concrete

Old glory , a suburban hospice

Cramped , trapped in the Vincennes' zoo

A drowned whale in the Seine's water

What a pain , what a sad world

Where savannah's wilting in the shadow

Of the fake mountain of the Vincennes' zoo

In this crummy domestic safari park

Where even the king of jungle abdicates

Far away from savannah & vast plains

The lion is an old gentleman with a paunch

Bald mane , behind its wire netting

It no longer even goes round like a jailed lion

What's the point in acting like a fierce animal again

When you no longer even frighten kids

Under the aviary of resigned birds of prey

They look up without hoping anything anymore

Next to the play-actings of indecent monkeys

& A little train that kids despise

A couple of elephants hop up & down with boredom

With useless tarnished tusks of ivory

To try to ease the depression seizing them

You would need a syringe as big as a farmhouse bread

Do African children , at their place ,

Go visit zoological gardens

To see jailed animals that come from far away ?

Cats , pigeons , ticket machines or dogs

Vincennes' zoo

Noah's Ark in the Parisian suburbs

Strange sad gloomy menagerie

Where animals are bored stiff

• Artist:Bénabar
• Album:Les risques du métier (2003)