Case départ [English translation]

Come on, talk about yourself

Come on tell the tales

Propel, push, compel

One of the muses of nature

And fold them

Tell them your life story

Don’t turn your back on your tale

Stay in the real world

That’s what I’m told

So off I go

It’s not at all by my own choice I stand before you crouched

A microphone in my hand and underneath my heart blurred

I didn’t start off by telling myself music was my ticket out of here

Product of a hard-knock schooling or a quirky family

I’ve had my fill of hope, my fill of caressing words, my fill of city squares and my fill of Janis Joplin

I travelled as a kid, covered a world whose appetite for discovery extended well beyond Paris.

Product of Africa, of Mada[gascar], of wonderful Provence

Add to the mix blue eyes, ginger hair, that complicates things a bit

it doesn’t disturb anyone but when there are no redheads for miles around

What do you do about all the looks, you confront them

That’s when I discovered that putting myself on show doesn’t make me marked out

That the songs I listen to give me a kick

I stroke my pen like an air vent

And I discovered writing one night from people who’d known for a long time how you go about… go about transforming words into tears, phrases into weapons.

Since then I write even if it doesn’t work out

To avoid seeing my senses explode

Emptying my consciousness, my suffering, my freedom, my deliverance

And since then I haven’t stopped doubting

I never stop doubting

I write, I never stop doubting

Why go simple when you can go complicated

Act humble when you can big yourself up

Why not call into question the way it all works

It would be easy to follow them but look, when you see them… it doesn’t work

I’ve been told you don’t take the road, you make it

I’ve been told a way must be hacked by machete

If that scares you tell yourself that in this nomad’s world..

You’ll need one assurance

To be where you’re not expected, where you’re not expected

Take the time to pay a call on.. Square One

Often, where you’re not expected.. no, no

Where you’re not expected

Take the time to visit Square One

I’ve chosen this path without a trace, a path you draw for yourself

And if you slog like crazy you get there, that was me I in medicine

I learnt people, patients, nights, I learnt the flows, the vocations blocked or fled

I learnt death, I touched it, I saw it sent packing by expert hands, those same hands which trained me,

I saw loss, I saw suffering, I never made a distinction between them and me and I, I was losing myself, without distance in the end I quickly lost the taste

Proud of the way people look at you, you are.. a doctor but it’s sad to see so clearly the end of the doctoring road

Average, not bad, the kids, the pretty wife, the house in its grounds behind the gate and the frustration of their choked life

Not regretted I didn’t want it, I wanted to tell myself I’ve really done everything to choose this path

I’m in in a nomad’s world I only need one assurance

To be where I’m not expected

I’m taking the time to pay a call on… Square One

Often where I’m not expected

Where I’m not expected no no.

• Artist:Ben Mazué