Étudiant/Poil aux dents [English translation]

Pimply activists

For a better society

Of which they would be the leaders

Where they could make money

Here's the stream of students

Clean themselves and non-violent

That go to join the ranks

Of the bureaucrats and the traders

You lazy student

I'm not from your clan or your race

But I do know that the kick in the ass

That I give to the bourgeois who's passing

Comes from the school street

And soils my shoes

Mummy, when I'll be a grown-up

I wouldn't be a student

So you'll be a worthless number

Oh yes , that's what I want !

Student in architecture

In your illustration board

Lays our fears about the future

And the society of tomorrow

Please show us your projects

And the color of your concrete

Your sophisticated HLM1

We don't want them , we shall build

Our own houses ourselves

On the ruins of your illusions

And then we'll regain control

Over what ? Our urban habitat

I know it doesn't make you laugh

But I couldn't help myself

Mummy, when I'll be a grown-up

I wouldn't like to be a student

So then what job do you want ?

Don't know either. What about gangsterism ?

Student in medicine

You're gonna work hard for 7 years

To be a seller of penicillin

Your fucking drugs

To the bourgeois thou shalt sell

And in them , cancers thou shalt diagnose

And in proles , ulcers thou shalt diagnose

For it's a bit less expensive for them to pay for.

And in the Third World which needs you

I'm sure not to find you there

Though a lot of chaps will die

You'll forget I sang that :

Medicine is a whore

Its procurer is the pharmacist2

Mummy, when I'll be a grown-up

I wouldn't like to be a student

So then who you wanna be ?

Don't know either. What about poetry ?

My dear law student

There is more fascists in your fortress

Than in a regiment of paratroopers

To tell you the truth , you sucker.

Tomorrow you'll be the one who'll come

In your bloody robe

To ensure the application of laws

We never voted for.

Whether you end up being a judge or a lawyer

We don't want your kinda justice

And if you end up being a notary

Perhaps we'll tumble down in your office

To make things clearer to your cleric

And it wouldn't matter if he isn't there

Mummy, when I'll be a grown-up

I wouldn't like to be a student

So then what do you wanna do ?

Don't know either. What about a nursing school ?

Student in nothingness

You're loafing about in the universities

You never read Das Kapital

But you have understood long ago

That one should never work

And never be marching for the army

That we are puking their culture

That we don't wanna be the slaves

Attached to this state

To this ruined society

That respectable students

Hope to master one day in the future

Dragging behind them in their satchels

The bullshits of their elders

Mummy, when I'll be a grown-up

I wouldn't like to be a student

So you'll be a worthless number

Oh yes , that's what I want !

1. HLM are mostly ( though not always ) huge and hideous concrete blocks where most the poorest of the French(wo)men end up2. It happens that the word *procurer* in English is very close - both in letters and pronunciation - to the word *procureur* in French, which means "attorney-general". As the next stanza is about justice I chose to use the term as a funny reference ! ;)

• Artist:Renaud
• Album:Le Retour de Gérard Lambert