Saïd et Mohamed [English translation]

She changed the hotel sheets

Fingerprints on the garbage cans

Little swallow in the midst of crows

She sang "Desperado"

I was late getting to sleep

I was overtaken by the sun

On the other side of the hall

She made the mirrors sing

I spent an hour of her life

An hour under the Algerian sun

In the course of time

There are moments we regret

Behind her half-closed eyes

I saw more gray than pink

When I had left I understood

That I had lost something

These kids who don't do anything in school

Who's pockets are full of bottles of glue

Anyway no one helps you

When you're named Saïd or Mohamed

It's always a sky of corrugated steel

It's the window in the third courtyard

It's the shouting of the neighbor women filling your ears

And the hours of bad sleep

But if there is someone around who understands

Bad French, the Muslim

In the course of time

It would be good if they were concerned

Before her eyelids explode

And they take the gray in overdose

When I left I understood

That we could do something

You send ten francs

To the children of the Ganges

Because you saw disturbing photos

You send ten francs

To children from somewhere else

Because you saw scary photos

And she you pass below your house

She you pass below your house

Since I returned to Marseille

Her friends don't have news of her

There are too many swallows

Or too many crows

She had to move to a different ghetto

But instead I think she's

Changing the sheets in another hotel

Other fingerprints

On other garbage cans

On the other side of another hall

She must make the mirrors sing

The mirrors sing, the mirrors sing, the mirrors sing

• Artist:Francis Cabrel