Les mômes de la cloche

From one end of the week
On the boulevards in the outskirts
You see them hanging around by the hundreds
With their dirty boots and their loves
In shirts that are ten days old
Under the glow of the streetlights
Striking poses like Pompadour
These are our lovely ironworkers
These are our dolls, our puppets, our marionettes
Listen in the night
They sing this refrain:

It's us, the kids, the kids of the bell
Bums who wander off with not a dime to spare
It's us, the lost ones, the pureed lost ones
Who are loved one night anywhere
Yet we have
Hearts that aren't demanding
But no one wants us
Well, too bad for them
What the hell
We don't care!
No one clings to it
There’s no love
The kids of the bell!

But since they don’t have the toilets
Needed for the fancy neighborhoods
It’s not at Galeries Lafayette
That they go to work every night
Along the Saint-Martin Canal
At the Sébasto, at the chapel
We’re always pretty dapper
For the guy who calls you
From the popular article, it’s not a pretty toy
There are no silk dolls
At the thirty-cent stores
It's us, the kids, the kids of the bell
Bums who wander off with not a dime to spare
It's us, the lost ones, the pureed lost ones
Who are loved one night anywhere
Just like our ribouis
We’re not varnished
We’ll never go
To the Riviera
What the hell
We don't care!
When money cuts us down
We’ll spend four days
Over there in the Tower
The kids of the bell
They sold all their caresses
They were paid as best as they could
Then one day, nothing left in the till
They’ll end up in the canal
And without having like a horse
The pity of the street folks
They take them to the hospital
The crowd says, "It’s just a crane"
And that’s how our dolls, our puppets
When they’re out of cash
All head to Pantin

It's us, the kids, the kids of the bell
Bums who wander off without friends, without kin,
It's us, the lost ones, the pureed lost ones
Who go to sleep in the horrible hole
Behind our convoy
We never see
Neither flowers nor crowns
Not even a soul
What the hell
We don't care!
When death cuts us down
It’s our most beautiful day
Bells, ring for
The kids of the bell!...