Nicolas [English translation]

It's nothing but a song which comes back sometimes,

Only a smile, in memory of a boy from back then,

When my days are sad and dull1

and my life is full of snow2 it pops up3 in my memory

At the French secondary school4 one evening he was waiting for me

He was smiling, Nicolas.

Nicolas, Nicolas, my first tear was for you alone

We were children, our sorrow mattered as much as the grown ups'

Nicolas, Nicolas, it was love, we didn't know,

That's life, which picks us up,

Which leads us where it will and where it goes

A boy child, his eyes too big, on a platform, crying

It has snowed a lot5 since then, down there, in Paris

He know nothing about me or my life,

What I do, who I am,

He doesn't know6 the other Maritza, he still has the real one one down there.

Nicolas, Nicolas, my first grief has the same name as you

I knew that never would I come back here, close to you,

Nicolas, Nicolas it was love, we didn't know

It's time that passes by

That causes our sorrows and our joys

Nicolas, Nicolas, my first tear was for you alone

We were children, our sorrow mattered as much as the grown ups'

Nicolas, Nicolas, it was love, we didn't know,

That's life, which picks us up,

Which leads us where it will and where it goes

Nicolas, Nicolas....

1. literally: "are grey"2. lit: "it snows on my life"3. lit: "comes again"4. in American English: "high school"5. I think this mains "a lot of sad, dull days". Although it looks a bit like: "there'a been a lot of water under the bridge" French has that same idiom and the lyrics avoid it, which suggests that "snowed" here is a reference back to "snow in the first verse6. for any fellow Scots: this "know" is "ken"; the previous one was "know"

• Artist:Sylvie Vartan