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Translation
Cayenne
I can still remember my first wife,
he name was Nina and she was a true whore in spirit,
the queen of the hookers of La Plaine Saint Denis1,
she walked the streets near to the Rue de Rivoli2.
Chorus:
Death to the authorites3,
Death to the cops4,
Long live the children of the prison ship5,
death to the cops and spooks6!!
She was enticing the customer
when my fate to be a convict
came knocking on her door
in the form of a rich man,
and spat on her,
filled with his disdain
grabbed her ass
and treated her as a harlot!!
{chorus}
I who was her man
and not a scum7
acquired in my youth 8
the principles of a savage,
I took out my .259
and with a single round right in the heart
I laid him out stone dead on the floor
and was locked up within the hour!!
{chorus}
JUST ONE SOLUTION; REVOLUTION
As soon as I was arrested
I was taken to the prison ship,
it's there that I served the terms of my sentence.
Young people today should
desist from being stupid asses
because for just one simple mistake
they chuck you into the slammer!!
{chorus}
If I happen to die
I want to be buried
in a quite small cemetery
at the Porte Saint Martin10,
400 naked hookers
will come and shout very loudly
"it's the king of pimps
that they're taking to the tomb!!"
{chorus}
On the tomb you will read
this glorious phrase
written by crooks
of a very high order:
honour to the hooker
who gave me her hand11
If I wasn't dead
I would still kiss you.
- 1. An area in the SaintDenis-Seine département in the Île de France region, effectively the part of the ancient Commune of La Chapelle that didn't get incorporated into Paris (because it was outside the defensive wall) in the 19th century and was instead split between three of the Communes (Saint-Denis, Saint Ouen, and Aubervilliers) of Sqint-denis-Seine
- 2. Important street in Paris, one end close the the metro sttion on the NE side of the Place de la Concorde and reaching from there just short of 2 miles in a roughly East-SouthEast direction
- 3. literally "Death to the cows", but in this slang phrase "vaches" doesn't mean "cows" but rather "members of law enforcement or security agencies"; these lyrics are very slangy
- 4. means much the same as the previous line, although "condés" covers licensing authorities and senior bureaucrats a well as law enforcement agencies
- 5. Cayenne could mean a factory or workshop employing people at subsubsistence pay levels, or kind of pepper, but I think that its other meaning "prison ship" makes more sense in the context of this song, particularly in the second line of the fourth stanza
- 6. la Sureté is roughly equivalent to the FBI in the USA or to what used to be MI5 in the UK
- 7. Literally: "not a cow skin"; in slang, "a cow skin" has quite a wide range of derogatory meanings
- 8. I think "acquit" is a typo for "acquis"
- 9. small-bore pistol such as the Colt ACP
- 10. a monument in the form of a three-opening trimumphal arch, built in 1674 about 60 metres north of the site of the 14th century city gate on Rue Saint Martin
- 11. in marriage, I guess. It was used to mean that long ago (by Corneille)and more recently (19th century by Stendahl, also yet more recently at least one of the 20th century authors or playwrights that I read a lot of 50 years ago) and it would fit if the hooker referred to is the one who was his first wife - see the first stanza. But I don't recall hearing (or seeing) it used in that sense in French more recently than 50 years ago - although it does commonl means that in English
- 12. literally "cows", but in slangy speech it can meanin pretty well anything insulting enough - see footnotes 3 and 4 above
- 13. literal meaning is "passive pederast" ccording to TLF, but in slang usage it also has a very wide range of derogatory meanings, some of them without any sexual connotation
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Submitted by 
michealt on 2017-08-27
michealt on 2017-08-27Added in reply to request by 
Timpsimon
Timpsimon Last edited by michealt on 2019-06-17
michealt on 2019-06-17✕
Idioms from "Cayenne"
| 1. | Mort aux vaches |
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