Le Déserteur (song)

[1] It was later translated into German (1959 by Gerd Semmer[2]), English (september 1964 by John Brunner),[3] Italian (1966 by Santo Catanuto, 1971 by Giorgio Calabrese, sung by Luigi Tenco, Ornella Vanoni and Ivano Fossati), Swedish ("Desertören", 1969 by Roland Von Malmborg, "Jag står här på ett torg" before 2003 by Lars Forssell), Dutch ("De deserteur", 1964 by Ernst van Altena, sung by Peter Blanker), Polish ("Dezerter" by Wojciech Młynarski), Welsh ("Y FFoadur" by Huw Jones), Catalan (1977 sung by Ramon Muntaner and Joan Ollé, 1980 by Joan Isaac), Danish (1964 by Per Dich), Spanish (1986 by Glutamato Ye-yé, 2003 by Manuel Talens,[4] later by José Manuel Caballero Bonald) and many other languages.

[5] The song was recorded in French by Peter, Paul & Mary in 1966 and by Esther & Abi Ofarim for their album 2 In 3 in 1967.

The song is in the form of a letter to the French president from a man explaining his reasons for refusing the call to arms and becoming a deserter: in it, he explains he wants nothing to do with war as he has seen his father die, his brother leave never to return, his children cry and his mother die of sorrow.

In the late 1970s, the song was covered by nuclear protesters in Brittany, as a direct apostrophe to the fierce pro-nuclear French president Giscard d'Estaing in the Plogoff struggle.

The following is the altered French stanza and its English translation: Si vous me poursuivez, Prévenez vos gendarmes Que je n'aurai pas d'armes Et qu'ils pourront tirer.

Writer and musician Boris Vian was a heavy critic of the French colonial wars of the 1950s. Due to the heavy criticism expressed in Le Déserteur , French radio stations were not allowed to play it.