"On the Street of the Good Children"



On the Street of the Good Children[1]
One sells everything to the highest bidder
There was a police commissariat
And now it is no longer there

A fantastic explosion
Didn't leave a brick
One says that it was Fantomas[2]
But it was the class struggle

A zealous cop came quickly
Carrying a heavy shell
That had been detourned
And he imprudently returned it

The police sergeant, the commissioner
Joined the ordinary cop
Left in scattered fragments
That one gathered together on a blotter

Contrary to what some believe
There were some who got some
The astonishment was profound
One can see them on the ceiling

Here is what he did
So as to make war on the palace
Know that your best friend
Proletarian, is chemistry!

The socialos[3] had done nothing
To curtail the heinous crimes
Of capitalist infamy
But fortunately the anarchist came

He did not have prejudices
The priests will be eaten
No fatherland, no colonies
And he denied all power

Some more beautiful efforts
And we say that we will make ourselves strong
We will settle radically
The unresolved social problem

On the Street of the Good Children
There is meat to sell to the highest bidder
The radiant future takes place
And the old world is on the scrap heap

(Written in 1968 by Guy Debord, though sometimes attributed to Raymond Callemin, aka "Raymond la Science," an anarchist and member of the Bonnot gang of bankrobbers who was executed by the State in 1913, the year he supposedly wrote this song. Translated from the French by NOT BORED! November 2006.)

[1] On 8 November 1892, an anarchist named Emile Henry deposited a bomb at the offices of the Carmaux Mining Company in Paris. The bomb was discovered, seized and transported to the police station located on the Rue des Bons-Enfants, where it exploded, killing five police officers.

[2] Fantomas was a fictional and very popular French arch-villain. He made his debut in 1911.

[3] The socialists.




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