Le Vélo D'hiver Lyrics in English Calogero

Below, I translated the lyrics of the song Le Vélo D'hiver by Calogero from French to English.
They called me the Winter Velodrome
I've seen lots of kids
Gentlemen, ladies, and bikes
On the oval track beneath my glass roof
I've seen tough guys
Boxers, Piaf, Yvette Horner
They called me the Winter Velodrome
And from summer to winter
We had fun under my glass roof
For real, I remember
Like it was yesterday
Some of the finest hours under my glass roof
Nonchalantly, from up in the stands
They shouted hurrahs
The poor up top and the rich down below
There was even green grass
In the middle of all that
And all Paris pulsed inside me
They called me the Winter Velodrome
That was before the war
My finest hours under my glass roof
For real, I remember
And then they came
Uniforms, revolvers
They called me the Winter Velodrome
I've seen lots of kids
Still played in the puddles
On the oval track beneath my glass roof
I've seen old folks
Die like dogs, on their backs
They called me the Winter Velodrome
It was mid-July
They locked up under my glass roof
For real, I remember
Whole families
That they deported to hell
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SONG MEANING

Le Vélo d'hiver invites us into the memories of Paris’s once-famous Vélodrome d’Hiver, a cycling arena that speaks in the first person. Under its huge glass roof we see a carnival of life: cheering crowds, gritty boxing matches, children racing around, and legends like Édith Piaf and Yvette Horner lighting up the stage. Calogero’s lyrics feel like flipping through a vibrant scrapbook where Tout-Paris gathers for sport, music, and merriment, the poor squeezed into the upper seats while the rich lounge ringside.

But the scrapbook takes a darker turn. The same roof that echoed with applause becomes a cage in July 1942, when Nazi troops and collaborators flood in with uniforms and revolvers. Thousands of Jewish families are herded onto the oval track, forced to wait in squalor before deportation to the camps. By letting the velodrome itself remember both its golden age and its day of infamy, Calogero delivers a moving history lesson wrapped in melody, reminding listeners how quickly a place of joy can be twisted into a scene of tragedy—and why those echoes must never fade.

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