The love song of 'Fabulous' Fab Tourre

Fabrice Tourre
Mark Wilson | Getty Images
Fabrice Tourre

A song Fabrice Tourre wrote just prior to the financial crisis was featured in the trial of the former Goldman Sachs executive Thursday.

In a 2007 email to his then girlfriend Marine Serres, who worked in sales in Goldman's London office, Tourre described a difficult time for his unit, in the form of an adaptation of lyrics from a French song.

(Read more: 'Fabulous' Fab admits key Goldman email was wrong)

In translation:

In the trading room
A few of us
Were looking for glory

Although we were sad
To have an empty P&L
We could not help but keep hoping

And when a few clients
Took a credit-linked note
In exchange of a good fresh P&L

We narrated verses
Gathered around the stove
Forgetting about the crisis.

Lawyers for the Securities and Exchange Commission showed the jury the song in an effort to show that even as Tourre was working on the Abacus deal—a complex security linked to subprime mortgage bonds—he was privately aware that the subprime market was in trouble.

(Read more: A legal bane of Wall Street switches sides)

When the SEC lawyer initially described it as a poem, Tourre corrected him.

"I don't want to take credit," he said, pointing out that he was adapting a French song.

It's not clear what song.

Tourre also translated for the jury another email to his girlfriend, which read in part:

"More and more leverage in the system, The whole building is about to collapse anytime now! Only potential survivor, the fabulous Fab[rice Tourre] standing in the middle of all these complex, highly leveraged, exotic trades he created without necessarily understanding all of the implications of those monstrosities!!!"

Tourre said the emails were "silly" and "romantic." He denied creating any monstrosities, insisting that he was merely referring to an article in the Financial Times.

(Read more: SAC Capital indicted by federal grand jury)

Tourre's testimony is expected to continue through tomorrow afternoon.

—By CNBC's John Carney. Follow him @carney on Twitter.