I Haven't Left Yet, But This Song Is Stuck In My Head

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I have left Russia --- I'm no longer there!
My girls walk in tears through their day.
I now sow my oats without a care
On the foreign fields of the Champs Elysées.

Someone mutters on a streetcar passing:
"He's not here! He's at last gone bye bye!
Let him sing now his songs foreign-fancy
About the palace over there in Versailles."

I hear behind me the trading of news:
"Not that one! He left! Ask if you please!"
"Not that one?" And they elbow through
And in taxis they sit on their knees.

A Magadan cell I had shared
With my Civil War buddy, who's saying now
I had written him from over there,
"I'm bored, Vanya, come over somehow!"

I've already asked to be retaken
I had begged, I had pleaded and called...
But I won't return! This is mistaken ---
Because I never did leave at all!

I'll give a gift to all who believed
So that they'll get a movie happy end:
L'Arc de Triomphe you'll receive!
The Renault factories, take them, friend!

I am laughing, I'm dying from laughter!
How this nonsense was ever believed!
Don't worry --- I haven't left hereafter,
And don't hope, either --- I will not leave.
1970

(He was mocking rumours that he would leave completely to be with his French wife.)