« Complainte de la Butte »

« Complainte de la Butte »

Performed by Rufus Wainwright

Translated by Hannah Joy Stacy for John Thomas Mars on Valentine’s Day 2020

The battered, sorrow-filled moon above shows riches among every highlight of your golden-blonde hair.

The Amber lit moon hides the tattered holes found within your once lavishly adorned skirt with glorious, divine perfection.

The pale moon above reflects beautiful opals I see when I look into your clear but very weary eyes.

Oh; princess of the streets — what a welcome you are to my very broken and lonely heart.

The stairways up to the Butte can make the wretched sigh; while windmill wings of the Moulin shelter you and I.

(Repeated in French)

My little pan-handler, I can sense your handcuffs searching quickly for my wrists. I feel your feverish skin and your body ever-thin yet I forget my each and every sorrow.

Although I taste sickness upon your lips and feel hunger with your touch I become completely inebriated and certain it is you who will surely be my destruction.

The stairways up to the Butte can make the wretched sigh; while windmill wings of the Moulin shelter you and I.

So it is she floats; cantering away just as the moon begins to scamper on.

Alas; there she goes, my princess of the streets yet my dreams still radiate with golden-blond highs.

The stairways up to the Butte can make the wretched sigh; while windmill wings of the Moulin shelter you and I.