L’affiche Rouge Lyrics in English Feu! Chatterton

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Below, I translated the lyrics of the song L’affiche Rouge by Feu! Chatterton from French to English.

You didn't ask for

Glory or tears

Neither organ nor prayer

For the dying

Eleven years already

How fast eleven years fly

You'd simply used

Nothing but your weapons

Death doesn't dazzle the eyes

Of the Partisans

Your portraits were

On the walls of our towns

Black with beard and night

Shaggy, threatening

The poster that seemed

A bloodstain

Because when spoken

Your names are hard

Tried to create fear

In passers-by

Nobody seemed to see you

French preferably

People walked blind to you

All day long

But at curfew time

Wandering fingers

Had written under your photos

DEAD FOR FRANCE

And the bleak mornings

Were changed by it

Everything had the color

Uniform of frost

At the end of February

For your final moments

And then one of you

Said calmly

Happiness to all

Happiness to those who'll survive

I die without hate inside

For the German people

Goodbye pain and pleasure

Goodbye roses

Goodbye life

Goodbye light and wind

Marry, be happy

And think of me often

You who will remain

In the beauty of things

When all is over

Later in Erevan

A great winter sun

Lights up the hill

How lovely nature is

And how my heart breaks

Justice will come

On our triumphant steps

Oh my love, my Mélinée

My orphan

And I tell you to live

And to have a child

They were twenty-three

When the rifles blossomed

Twenty-three who gave

Their hearts before their time

Twenty-three strangers

And yet our brothers

Twenty-three in love

With living to the point of dying

Twenty-three who shouted

France as they fell

Did you like these lyrics?

SONG MEANING

Picture occupied Paris in 1944: the Nazis plaster a red poster on the city walls, flaunting the faces of 23 captured Resistance fighters to brand them as foreign criminals. L’affiche Rouge rewinds that grim scene and flips the script. Rather than shrinking in fear, Feu! Chatterton invites us to listen to the inner voices of these men who “criaient la France en s’abattant.” The song honors the Manouchian Group’s courage, their multicultural unity, and their refusal to let hatred dim their final moments. Lines like “Je meurs sans haine en moi pour le peuple allemand” turn the propaganda poster’s blood-red smear into a banner of dignity and forgiveness.

Sweeping strings and urgent vocals paint a cinematic journey from street-corner whispers to firing-squad dawns. Yet beneath the somber history pulses a life-affirming heartbeat: love letters to Mélinée, a wish for a winter sun over Erevan, and the rallying cry that justice will come. By resurrecting these testimonies, the band reminds listeners that bravery can be multilingual, that sacrifice can be tender, and that music can keep memory blazing even when posters fade.

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Feu! Chatterton L’affiche Rouge Lyrics