It was the fourth of June, the sun had been beating down since morning
I was tending to the vineyard and my brother was loading the hay
And when lunchtime came, we went back home
And our mother shouted from the kitchen "wipe your feet on the doormat"
Then she told us she had news from Bourg-les-Essonnes
This morning, Marie-Jeanne Guillaume threw herself off the Garonne bridge

And my father said to my mother as he passed us the gratin dish
"Marie-Jeanne, she wasn't very smart, pass me the bread
There are still two hectares to plow in the cane field"
And mom said "you see, when I think about it, it's really sad for poor Marie-Jeanne
It seems like nothing good ever happens in Bourg-les-Essonnes
And now Marie-Jeanne Guillaume has thrown herself off the Garonne bridge"

And my brother said he remembered when he, me and big Nicolas
Had put a frog on Marie-Jeanne's back one evening at the cinema
And he said to me "do you remember, you were talking to her this Sunday near the church
Give me some more wine, life is so unfair
To think that I saw her at the sawmill yesterday in Bourg-les-Essonnes
And today Marie-Jeanne has thrown herself off the Garonne bridge"

Mom finally said to me "my boy, you don't have much appetite
I cooked all morning and you haven't touched anything, you haven't eaten anything
Tell me, the sister of that young priest passed by in her car
She told me she would come for dinner on Sunday, oh, and by the way
She said she saw a boy who looked like you in Bourg-les-Essonnes
And he and Marie-Jeanne were throwing something off the Garonne bridge"

A whole year has passed, we no longer talk about Marie-Jeanne
My brother who got married has opened a store with his wife
The flu came to our area and my father died from it in January
Since then, mom doesn't feel like doing much, she's always tired
And me, from time to time I go pick some flowers on the side of Essonnes
And I throw them into the muddy waters from the top of the Garonne bridge

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