La mouche [English translation]

I'm a fly1

Laying on her mouth,

She was naked.

We'd have thought paradise,

She was so pretty.

I'm a fly

Laying there on her mouth.

I only had eyes for her.

But she wanted

I go away in a pull of wings.

On her lips, I'd decided

To never fly away again.

On her lips, I'd decided

Never to go away again.

But what's this fly doing,

Laying there on my mouth?

She asked the painter

Who answers her

How pretty it's

To see this fly

Drawn on your mouth.

And I'd have given everything,

Yes, given everything

To be able to kiss it.

On her lips, I'd deposited

The sweetest of the sweetest kisses.

On her lips, I, with a slap she killed me

Believing that I wanted to sting her.

I was a fly

Laying there on her mouth.

She was naked,

We'd have thought paradise,

She was so pretty.

I'm a fly

Crushed on her mouth.

It would help if you didn't tell women

We love them.

Otherwise, they become stung.2

On her lips, I, I'd posed

To tell her I loved her.

But of the women, I,

I wasn't suspicious.

It's a little late, you'll tell me.

It's a little late, you'll tell me, you'll tell me.

It's a little late, you'll tell me;

I was a fly

Placed on her mouth.

I only wanted to kiss her.

But she thought I wanted to sting her.

How hard it's to be a fly!

When other than you take the fly3

From me, only rests one point

On a painting;

How far away the sky is.

On her lips, I, I'd posed

To tell her I loved her.

Of the women, I,

I wasn't suspicious;

A fly, it's actually foolish to kill. X3

1. You've to immediately understand this isn't the insect, therefore, the song's main subject, even if sometimes it's well about it. The fly here is a make-up device used at the court of the kings of France from the 17th century. The women used a powder that made their faces very white and a small black point, like a mole. The fly delivered a message depending on where it took position on the face. For example, The fly placed near the mouth meant the woman who carried it was free. Michel Polnareff plays on the ambiguity between these different definitions in the French language to chain metaphors and puns around this fly born of the painter's imagination at which he gives life. The painter lends his thoughts to the fly he drew when he shows the final to the model posing for the painting and the lousy reaction of this last in discovering the fly added by the painter near her mouth.2. In French, when someone gets carried away, gets angry without knowing why we frequently ask: "Quelle mouche l'a piquée?" (What fly stung* him/her)3. "Take the fly" ("Prendre la mouche" in French) is an expression still commonly used today in France. We find the meaning of this formula in the French Academy fourth edition dictionary, in 1762: "We also say to take the fly to say to prick, to get angry without a subject.", "Take the fly = Get offended easily and even without reason."

Here the one who "takes the fly" (gets upset for a trifle) is actually the model complaining to the painter about this black dot added near her mouth and which she considers inappropriate. While the painter, on the contrary, finds it quite charming.

• Artist:Michel Polnareff