Legionnaire's Lament

I'm a Legionnaire, camel in disrepair
Hoping for a frigid air to come passing by
I am on reprieve, lacking my joie de vivre
Missing my gay Paris in this desert dry

And I wrote my girl, told her I would not return
Terribly taken a turn for the worse, now I fear
It's been a year or more since they shipped me to this foreign shore
Fighting in a foreign war so far away from my home

If only summer rain would fall
On the houses and the boulevards
And the sidewalk bagatelles, it's like a dream
With the roar of cars
And the lulling of the café bars
The sweetly sleeping sweeping of the Seine
Lord, I don't know if I'll ever be back again

La, la, la, la
La, la, la, la

Medicating in the sun
Pinched doses of laudanum
Longin' for the old fecundity of my homeland
Curses to this mirage, a bottle of ancient Chiraz
A smattering of distant applause
Is ringing in my poor ears

On the old left bank
My baby in a charabanc
Riding up the width and length
Of the Champs-Élysées

If only summer rain would fall
On the houses and the boulevard
And the sidewalk bagatelles, it's like a dream
With the roar of cars
And the lulling of the café bars
The sweetly sleeping sweeping of the Seine
Lord, I don't know if I'll ever be back again

La, la, la, la
La, la, la, la

If only summer rain would fall
On the houses and the boulevard
And the sidewalk bagatelles, it's like a dream
With the roar of cars
And the lulling of the café bars
The sweetly sleeping sweeping of the Seine
Lord, I don't know if I'll ever be back again

Be back again, be back again
I'll be back again, ah
La, la, la, la
La, la, la, la, oh, oh, oh, oh