L'odeur de l'essence [English translation]

Look how the nostalgia makes them believe in the grandeur of a past France they have dreamed of

Look how the incomprehension seizes those, who see their faith being denigrated without having demanded anything

Look how the fear convinces them that foreigners will come into their living rooms to replace them

Look how the desperation makes them take risks to survive, there where we have locked them all up

Listen how the paranoia makes them believe that we can no longer go out on the streets without being in danger

Listen how the panic makes them scream that the planet is dying and nobody’s giving a shit

Listen how the distrust upsets them to say that we can’t eat anything anymore, that we don’t even have the right to think anymore

Listen how the hate makes them drift to the extremes, start fires, set everything on fire

The smell of petrol, the smell of petrol

The smell of petrol

The die is cast, our leaders have failed

They will be destroyed by the monster they have created

The trust died at the same time as the respect

What’s governing us? Fear and anxiety

We destroy ourselves, we search for an enemy

Some people say „we’re fucked“, others are in denial

The billionaires bequeath to their stupid children

History belongs to those, who wrote it

Nobody listens anymore, everyone gives their opinion

Nobody changes their mind, only fruitless debates

Everyone gets upset because everyone gets upset

Only strict opinions, never is anything precise

No time to think anymore, tyranny of numbers

Twelve-year-old boys whose tweets get quoted by the media

Intelligence doesn’t sale as well as polemics

Battle Royale, it’s everyone for their little team

(Look) Fascist asshole, hysterical bitch

(Look) Everything is reactionary, everything is systemic

(Look) As soon as some idiot does something wrong

Parts of the whole world get sensitive

(Look) The culprits are the old victims

The vicious circle never ends

Everything degenerates, everything is cyclical

No solutions, only criticism

Everyone is sensitive (sensitive), everything is sensitive (sensitive)

Everyone is defensive (sensitive)

Sensitive topic, sensitive person (sensitive)

Sensitive (sensitive), sensitive (sensitive)

Sensitive (sensitive), everything is sensitive (sensitive)

Everyone is defensive (sensitive)

Sensitive topic, sensitive person (sensitive, sensitive, sensitive)

Everyone fucks everyone, wants to go along peacefully

In every second discussion there is someone complaining

While the rest of the world has to suffer so we can have a good life

The parents booze, the children have to pay the price

Car accidents, domestic violence

Alcohol is always at the root of the evil

Nothing fills more hospitals and courts

We deny to be alcoholic, it sucks to talk bad about it

We take idiots, give them weapons

Call that „justice“, are surprised by the drama

Caught in a devilish vortex

We treat evil with evil and the media enjoy it

Only trivial news, chicken, fox, viper1

Either you’re pro or you’re con, everything is binary

The people who make the headlines flirt with the extremes

Since the idiots have become the experts

Surrounded by idiots, Mongolian empire2

We act like idiots to make the idiots like us

We will fall like the Mongols

Like the Egyptians, like the Romans, like the Mayans, like the Greeks

We need to reboot, we need to reset

We don’t believe anything anymore, everything is deepfake

Facing the unknown in rejection

A mix of fear, hate and sadness

Our contradictions, our dilemmas

Corrupted, I was born in the system

No one is moving in the same direction, everything is inert

We only see one form of richness

Taking money from people, that’s stealing unless it’s business

Generation Z, because it’s the last one

You can clearly see that we haven’t known the war

All the old people vote, they will decide our future

Grandma votes for Marine3, she has three years to live

Fascist youtubers, pseudo-subversives

There you see what we get when we censor artists

Nothing ever advances, many radicalize

The lack of orientation makes them become nostalgic

For a time where others were already nostalgic

For a time where others were already nostalgic

For a time where others were already nostalgic

For a time where – uh, fuck, the

Sheep just want a charismatic leader

No empathy, everything is hierarchical

School teaches you individualism

They teach you how to make money, not friends

When the president gains half of the votes

Two thirds of France didn’t want him4

No need to know what the Senate is

To see that the old rich make the laws, uh

Nobody likes the rich until they become it themselves

Then they stash their money or panic about losing it

So many bullshit jobs, pretend to do it

How many jobs only serve to satisfy our bosses?

Fed by judgement, fed by clichés

While we don’t even know how to feed ourselves, we destroy each other

We don’t know how to deal with our emotions, so we hide them

We don’t know how to manage our relationships, so we ruin them

We don’t stand by ourselves, so we are cowards

We never forgive in a world that doesn’t forget

We spit on each other, we don’t know how to live together

We fight to be at the front of a plane that’s heading straight for the crash

1. A children's game of three teams that have to catch each other2. He is playing with the different meanings of the word "Mongol", which on one hand means "Mongolian", but on the other hand is often used as an insult in the sense of "idiot"3. Marine Le Pen, the presidential candidate of the right-wing extremist party "Front National"4. In the final round of the French presidential elections in 2017, the current president Emmanuel Macron gained 66% of the votes. However, only 20 million people had voted for him, which is less than a third of the French population. (But you need to consider that 30% of them weren't eligible to vote)

• Artist:Orelsan
• Album:Civilisation