Claude-Michel Schönberg
Empty Chairs at Empty Tables
[Marius sits alone in the ABC cafe.]

[MARIUS]
There's a grief that can't be spoken
There's a pain goes on and on
Empty chairs at empty tables
Now my friends are dead and gone

Here they talked of revolution
Here it was they lit the flame
Here they sang about 'tomorrow'
And tomorrow never came

From the table in the corner
They could see a world reborn
And they rose with voices ringing
And I can hear them now!

The very words that they had sung
Became their last communion
On this lonely barricade at dawn

[The ghosts of those who died on the barricade appear.]

Oh my friends, my friends forgive me
That I live and you are gone
There's a grief that can't be spoken
There's a pain goes on and on
Phantom faces at the window
Phantom shadows on the floor
Empty chairs at empty tables
Where my friends will meet no more

Oh my friends, my friends, don't ask me
What your sacrifice was for
Empty chairs at empty tables
Where my friends will sing no more