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Les Cigales d'Avignon

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We took the train from Paris

Everybody there spoke French

It’s the painter’s and the poet’s mother tongue

We sat back in the carriage 

With brie and a baguette

And headed for a short break in the sun

 

We hired a Renault Clio

Like Papa and Nicole

Drove all the way to the Plage de Piemanson

Fifty miles from Saintes-Maries

A hundred mobile homes

Lined up like nuclear driftwood on the shore

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And the world threw down a summer

The sun and the wind      

You can feel the breath of heaven on your bones

Throw back the shutter

The wind and the sun

And sing with Les Cigales d’Avignon

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They love a tree-lined avenue 

Everywhere you go in France

An honour guard that marched us to Uzes

In the squares they play the rumba

And every man’s a prince

And we drank a beer or two but I digress

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Lussan’s a floating island

In the sea of the Cevennes

I could feel the foothills calling me

To come back home again

 

They say that if you slow down

The sound of the cicada

You can hear a monkish choir singing low

A hundred thousand insects

A hundred thousand martyrs

A hundred thousand transmigrated souls

 

© MarkGSongs 2018