It’ll Be Okay
Annotation
Popular during the early years of the French Revolution, this song’s lively tune and repetitive chorus expressed revolutionaries’ hopefulness about the future. Singers manipulated its malleable lyrics to address a broad range of topical issues.
Transcription
Ca ira
Refrain:
Ah! ça ira, ça ira, ça ira,
Les aristocrates à la lanterne!
Ah! ça ira, ça ira, ça ira,
Les aristocrates on les pendra!
Le despotisme expirera,
La liberté triomphera,
Ah! ça ira, ça ira, ça ira,
Nous n'avons plus ni nobles, ni prêtres,
Ah! ça ira, ça ira, ça ira,
L'égalité partout régnera.
L'esclave autrichien le suivra,
Au diable s'envolera.
Ah! ça ira, Ah! ça ira,
Au diable s'envolera.
Refrain
Translation
It'll be okay
Refrain:
Oh. It'll be okay, be okay, be okay,
Hang the aristocrats from on high!
Oh. It'll be okay, be okay, be okay,
The aristocrats, we'll hang 'em all.
Despotism will breathe its last,
Liberty will take the day,
Oh. It'll be okay, be okay, be okay,
We don't have any more nobles or priests,
Oh. It'll be okay, be okay, be okay,
Equality will reign everywhere,
The Austrian slave will follow him,
To the Devil will they fly.
Oh. It'll be okay, be okay, be okay,
To the Devil will they fly.
Refrain
Credits
Included as part of the LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY: EXPLORING THE FRENCH REVOLUTION project
https://revolution.chnm.org/d/623