When love-sick teens get hold of French pop songs

Have a listen to this 1966 recording by Sylvie Vartan (who, amongst other things, was married to the "French Elvis Presley" Johnny Halliday for fifteen years) of a song called "Quand un amour renaît"
Non, rien n'est jamais fini
Essayons
Par tout ce qui nous unit
Pardonnons

Quand un amour renaît
Il faut lui laisser
Une chance encore
Pour nos erreurs du passé
Il faudra nous aimer
Encore plus fort

Car il y a entre nous
Plus que l'amour
Je crois que nous serions fous
Et je suis pour

Quand un amour renaît
Il faut lui laisser
Une chance encore
Pour nos erreurs du passé
Il faudra nous aimer
Encore plus fort

Quand un amour renaît
Il faut lui laisser
Une chance encore
Il faut tirer un trait
Et ne pas trop chercher
Qui a eu tort

Et tous ceux qui sont partis
Sans un pardon
Sachant que rien n'est fini
Regretteront

Sound familiar? Not fabulous lyrics, but those in the English version (based on this original French song) are probably quite a bit worse:

And when I see the sign that points one way
The lot we used to pass by every day

Just walk away, Renee
You won't see me follow you back home
The empty sidewalks on my block are not the same
You're not to blame

From deep inside the tears that I'm forced to cry
From deep inside the pain that I chose to hide

Just walk away, Renee
You won't see me follow you back home
Now, as the rain beats down upon my weary eyes
For me, it cries

Your name and mine inside a heart upon a wall
Still finds a way to haunt me though they're so small

Sounds like something on the creative writing page of the school yearbook, doesn't it? That's because the English lyrics were written by a love-sick sixteen-year-old.
I got the story from a feature on CBC Radio Two's late afternoon show Drive called "Rear View Mirror". You can read it here, and see some other songs inspired by this one that you may not have expected.

Oh, and I quite love the song. I liked the lyrics better when I was a love-sick adolescent, though.