Cargo Culte

Serge Gainsbourg 1971

(I try to translate)

I know of the the magicians who call to jets

In the jungle of New Guinea 

They scan the zenith coveting the guineas

That pillaging the freight would bring them

On the sea of coral in the wake of this

Machine those creatures not deprived

Of reason those Papuans wait for vapour

The wreck of the Viscount and that of the Comet

And as their totem hasn't ever been able to bring down

To their feet either a Boeing or even a DC-4

They dream of hijacks and of bird accidents

Those naive shipwreckers armed with blowguns

Who sacrifice to the cargo cult

By blowing toward the azur and the airplanes.

Where are you Melody and your wrecked body

Is it haunting the archipeligo where the sirens live

Or rather, attatched to the plane whose alarm

Siren has become silent, did you stay

Adrift on the currents have you already touched

Those bright corals of the Guinean coasts

Where those indiginous magicians act in vain

Who still hope for smashed planes

Having nothing more to lose or a God in whom to believe,

So that they give me back my insignificant loves 

I, like them, I prayed to the night cargo planes

And I hold onto that hope of an air

Disaster that would bring Melody back to me

A minor turned away from the gravity of the stars.