THE PHILOSOPHY

( A free translation of Greek singer Georges Moustaki's French chanson inspired by the life of gypsies.Very popular in the Latin Quarter of Paris in the 1970s. How many times she and I had attended his concert and sung with him! How passionately we lived in an utopia of our own creation! The utopia came down crashing in November 1978 when she left me to marry someone who did not believe in this philosophy. I am 74. She must be 60. I often wonder--- Where is she? Does she still remember me sometimes? Does she hum this chanson sometimes as I do when I think of her?Does she remember the long walks we used to take together on the banks of the Seine river past midnight every Saturday? Does she remember our days together in the Sorbonne?---B.Raman)


It's a nice band of merry revelers
Who go to bed at dawn and rise late
Thinking only of love or playing guitar
They have in life only this philosophy

We have a lifetime to have fun
We are going to rest after death.
Let us spend our lifetime in fun
We will rest after death.

They do nothing more than to celebrate each moment
They welcome the full moon, celebrate spring
For work they do not have much time
They have in life only this philosophy

We have a lifetime to have fun
We are going to rest after death.
Let us spend our lifetime in fun
We will rest after death.

And I recognize myself in them often enough
Like them I waste my life to the winds
And I tell myself they are my brothers or my children
They have in life only this philosophy.

We have a lifetime to have fun
We are going to rest after death.
Let us spend our lifetime in fun
We will rest after death.

If they are with you, look at their good life
How they're mad, how they're drunk
Their only folly, is wanting to be free
They have in life only this philosophy.

We have a lifetime to have fun
We are going to rest after death.
Let us spend our lifetime in fun
We will rest after death.

Even as they grow old they are what they are
Lovers of the strange ways of Utopia.
Lovers, poets, makers of songs
They have in life only this philosophy.

We have a lifetime to have fun
We are going to rest after death.
Let us spend our lifetime in fun
We will rest after death.