I never took myself for Joan of Arc and yet I hid my secret as she did. La Lorraine had voices inside her, I imitate this holy virgin. Neither a virgin nor a saint, I still hear voices inside me. They talk to me inside at any time, not only when I sleep. Often. More than real “sound visions”, I have a whole bunch. Delirious farandole, each has their job and union makes their strength.
Inner Voices
The voices in me speak constantly. They order, they suggest, they also console. I have learned to recognize them. At first when I was little, I only knew one. Then I understood that it was double and even triple. Each had her own character and way of speaking.
Over the days, they have become my friends, even those who criticize and command. I always agreed with them who never scolded me for anything. They never told me anything but the truth. My naked truth. The obvious. Each of us has a specific goal to achieve here. It’s in order to accomplish that that we breathe.
Most people ignore it, we all have voices for it. Some hear them in their childhood, it annoys them, it passes. If they don’t listen anymore, they keep quiet. Slowly, they forget them. Others have grown up too quickly. They don’t remember being small.
There are two ways to grow, the voices told me from the beginning. Rising to the sky is the best. Accept what is new, what is kind, what gives confidence and pushes us to start again. Strive to stay at the top of oneself. And wanting a summit that is always higher.
Three Families
Very quickly, I didn’t say ‘my voices’ anymore. I knew how to recognize them, I immediately guessed to which family they belonged, the role they played with me.
Three families of voices speak to me.
— Those that cheer me up when he is at half-mast and that comfort me when I cry. Gentle and understanding, these are my darlings.
— Those who give orders, always fair, but often difficult. I strive to obey them but I shit. They scold me for getting back on track.
— Those who comment on orders that are too difficult. These explain to me why obscure orders or those I find foolish.
Nothing is vain with voices. Nothing is empty. Whatever they are, they do me good. Thanks to my voices, I am never alone.
Ma Solitude
Je m’en suis fait presque une amie, une douce habitude.
Elle ne me quitte pas d’un pas, fidèle comme une ombre.
Elle m’a suivi ça et là, aux quatres coins du monde.
Et nous passons de longues nuits, tous les deux face à face.
Je ne sais vraiment pas jusqu’où ira cette complice,
Faudra-t-il que j’y prenne goût ou que je réagisse?
Si parfois je la répudie, jamais elle ne désarme.
Et, si je préfère l’amour d’une autre courtisane,
Elle sera à mon dernier jour, ma dernière compagne.
Non, je ne suis jamais seul avec ma solitude.
For having slept so often with my solitude,
I almost made a friend of her, a sweet habit.
She does not leave me at a single step, faithful as a shadow.
She followed me here and there, to the four corners of the world.
No, I am never alone with my solitude.
When she is in the hollow of my bed, she takes up all the space,
And we spend long nights, both face to face.
I really don’t know how far this accomplice will go,
Will I have to get a taste for it or react?
No, I am never alone with my solitude.
Through her, I learned as much as I shed tears.
If sometimes I repudiate her, she never disarms.
And, if I prefer the love of another courtesan,
She will be on my last day, my last companion.
No, I am never alone with my solitude.
No, I am never alone with my solitude.
Georges Moustaki, ie Giuseppe Mustacchi or Yussef Mustacchi, was born on May 3, 1934, in Alexandria (Egypt) and died on May 23, 2013, in Nice (France)
My advisors
They are twelve, forty, one hundred or even more. Despite their omnipresence and all the attention I give them, it is impossible for me to count them with precision. Over time, some of these voices take precedence, I only hear them anymore. Others take a step back, I hear them less often, then they simply fade away.
But there remains a hard core of familiar voices, which I have heard since childhood. I have classified them into three categories. My counselors, superiors, and consolers.
My advisors live in me. I constantly feel them. Their advice is precious to me, each of them reminds me of an experience I have lived, a friend or a distant acquaintance, always, in any case, my advisors hit the nail on the head and their advice proves beneficial.
Sing to Enchant
Most of the time, for advice, they use songs. I have always had thousands of songs in my head, which spring a hundred times a day. I composed dozens of songs, and even a rock opera with the help of my boys’ mother. As a teenager, I had sung on stage in the first part of a tour by Michel Polnareff.
At that time, singing was my whole life. Little by little I became a bathroom singer. The singer artist in me is living and falling. However, the songs, the thousands of songs that I have in my head express themselves wrongly, blithely jumping on all occasions. I use it to answer a question, punctuate a tirade, change the subject or illustrate a beach or street scene that I witness.
And I must admit, such a presence of mind, clad with such insistence, accompanied by such a repertoire has put doubt in me. Where do these clothes, these saws come from? Am I the happy owner or did they blow to me appropriately?
Ultimate Inhabitant
I have long opted for the second hypothesis. The multitude of jokes that I utter at every turn of singing is whispered to me by the melodious voice of a counselor. In vain, she always misses her shot.
My most beautiful career as a singer, I made it for a restricted audience: mine. I sing for myself, I admit. Never for a real audience that coughs and chuckles, never for all of you who don’t listen to me. It is indeed my voice that comes out of the powerful chest box, but in the room there is only me, a thin audience who never claps.
It is indeed my voice, I believe, but the text and the melody are whispered to me by a consoler. Little consolation: I am learning a lot. Dark Sunday and nostalgia for the stage. No song, despite its appropriateness, has been able to take away the least of my spleen. Sadness is my backdrop. All smiles outside, the sorrow still holds me. My last inner people. My ultimate inhabitant.
Ma liberté
Pour cueillir, en rêvant, une rose des vents sur un rayon de lune
Et combien j’ai souffert Pour pouvoir satisfaire tes moindres exigences
J’ai changé de pays, j’ai perdu mes amis pour gagner ta confiance
Toi qui m’as fait sourire Quand je voyais finir une belle aventure
Toi qui m’as protégé quand j’allais me cacher pour soigner mes blessures
Lorsque sans me méfier Les pieds et poings liés, je me suis laissé faire
Et je t’ai trahi pour une prison d’amour et sa belle geôlière Et je t’ai trahi pour une prison d’amour et sa belle geôlière
My freedom For a long time I kept you like a rare gem
My freedom It’s you who helped me to cast off
To go anywhere, to go to the end of the paths of fortune
To gather, while dreaming, a wind rose on a moonbeam
My freedom In front of your wishes My soul was submissive
My freedom I had given you everything My last shirt
And how much I suffered to be able to meet your slightest demands
I changed countries, I lost my friends to win your trust
My freedom You knew how to disarm All my habits
My freedom You who made me love Even solitude
You who made me smile When I saw a beautiful adventure end
You who protected me when I was going to hide to heal my wounds
My freedom Yet I left you One night in December
I deserted the wide paths That we followed together
When without suspecting myself
With my hands and feet tied, I let myself be pushed
And I betrayed you for a prison of love and his beautiful jailer
And I betrayed you for a prison of love and her beautiful jailer
My Superiors
They are my directors of consciousness, and never hesitate to trumpet an order to me, without worrying about being explicit. the best example gave rise to a recent article: That’s enough!!
Yes, it’s soufi, for sure. Would they all together be a carbon copy of the enormous gigantic giant of very large size (eggdtgt) that we saw them and me? What a stir if that’s the case! One thing is certain and I hold it as such: my superiors are not my equals. It would be known. What to say?
Their so strong cinema is never a turnip
Their caste is superior and often took me up
In the streets of my heart holding high on the way
Always putting my foot where it’s cleaned on the top
Ifever I see them, I sing to them an ave
Blessing them with both hands when I suffered all day
All my worries are stored every one in its bay
I have a confused, deranged, disturbed interior. If I let myself go, I turn it into a black mess. They watch over. By ordering me, they will put good order to it. They do not drag for long. They do not take gloves. Yelling makes them happy and puts me back on my feet.
Without them, I would be without wings. Without a warning and without the sermons they give me, I would have long ago lost the taste for living. I am disorderly: you have to order me well. Constrain and force me to channel myself. Punish me, tantrum me to make me move forward.
I shout too sometimes. Would it really be me? Hey no. These are their voices.
D’être libres, mon amour
Sans projets et sans habitudes
Nous pourrons rêver notre vie
Tout est possible, tout est permis
Sur les murs du mois de mai
Ils nous disent la certitude
Que tout peut changer un jour
Tout est possible, tout est permis
D’être libres, mon amour
Sans projets et sans habitudes
Nous pourrons rêver notre vie
We will take the time to live
To be free, my love
Without projects and without habits
We could dream our life away
Come, I’m here, I’m just waiting for you
Everything is possible, everything is allowed
Come, listen to these words that vibrate
On the walls of May
They tell us the certainty
That everything can change one day
Come, I’m here, I’m just waiting for you
Everything is possible, everything is allowed
We will take the time to live
To be free, my love
Without projects and without habits
We could dream our life away
My Consolers
Don’t worry my guy, everything will be for the best. Such is their wavelength. They console me by minimizing my anxieties, which are mainly about trifles. I have such a strong habit of wandering the confines of the universe, if not the multiverse, one can understand that small daily worries are not simple things to solve for a crazy person like me.
My consolers form a choir where the echo of one dominates the first circle, around which a second circle spills, numberless weeping that make chorus to the echo. His role is assigned: the echo amplifies and develops the often striking arguments of the first circle.
The first consoler sits at the center. She is my coryphaeus.
In the proper sense, the coryphaeus (from ancient Greek koruphḗ, ‘top of the head’) is the choir director in ancient Greek tragedy. The coryphaeus is most often located in the middle of the stage, then called orchestra. He is responsible for guiding the choruses. He responds to the chorus, questions it or repeats his remarks. He sometimes speaks on behalf of the choir and happens to be the only one who engages with the character on stage. (Wikipedia)
The ensemble of the choirs certainly evokes the Greek tragedy and the catharsis it provokes in each person of the audience. The very first Greek tragedies of which we have kept track, those of Aeschylus.
Am I influenced by Jean-Claude Devictor, a promoter of Aeschylus in the 70s? It’s more than likely. We staged and performed the trilogy of l’Orestie, then the Prometheus in chains with the Passy Theatre Group, then again the Orestie a few years later with the Théatre Antique de la Sorbonne, both troupes having been created by Devic and myself.
But I digress and you wander for my selfish pleasure alone. I resume then.
The Ventricles of the Heart
Yes, like the beating heart, this strange choir has its ventricles, two distinct and well-separated chambers. Each has its own rules, conduct and style. But the two follow without batting an eye the project owner, the first number, unique and moody, static, ectatic, epic, and equestrian, who rubs herself against it, bites herself with it, who immolates herself, consoles herself with it.
The Faithful
The consolers echo behind the One, the Unique, the First, the Single: the coryphaeus. The heart does its best, the body does the rest. With the One, clinging to her tunic in an oblique attitude, the choir of consolers gathers in a first circle or SDFFDE, Section Des Fidèles Fous D’Elle. Their name indicates it quite well: they are crustaceans. Crunchy devourers, they devour one of them, devour and decapitate it.
The Less Faithful
Around the first circle, free electrons make the second chorus or SDIMFDE, Section Des Infidels Moins Fous D’Elle. Their name also expresses it, they are less compulsive towards the One. Laughing at the coryphaeus as one lisses a clawed horn, making it pout, mocking it, making love to it like one fornicates. In any case, these infidels are submissive. The slightest deviation is not appropriate.
The members of the two clans, I name them Pleureuses or Peureuses or Peu HeureusesMourners or Fearful or Little Happy — depending on the case and circumstances.
LUNE
The help they provide is infinitely negligible, let’s say clearly that they are of no use to me. Everything rests on the One, L’Une which I have named Lune. It’s well-found, I find. Lune consoles me with her mere presence, especially when others are not there, invisible, inaudible, silent. It’s great, we can take a break.
It’s Lune l’Une who matters to me. Lune comforts and transports me. Lune is the sun of my heart, and her choirs have nothing to do with it. Lune is my joy, my toy, my corduroy. Lune is the geek, the freak, the unique.
Will I admit it? None of the choirs touch my heart.
The Pleureuses / Peureuses / Peu HeureusesMourners/ Fearful/ Not Very Happy make me shit.
Il est trop tard
Pendant que je dormais pendant que je rêvais
Les aiguilles ont tourné il est trop tard
Mon enfance est si loin il est déjà demain
Passe passe le temps
Il n’y en a plus pour très longtemps
Pendant que je t’aimais pendant que je t’avais
L’amour s’en est allé il est trop tard
Tu étais si jolie je suis seul dans mon lit
Passe passe le temps
Il n’y en a plus pour très longtemps
Pendant que je chantais ma chère liberté
D’autres l’ont enchaînée il est trop tard
Certains se sont battus moi je n’ai jamais su
Passe passe le temps
Il n’y en a plus pour très longtemps
Pourtant je vis toujours pourtant je fais l’amour
Il m’arrive même de chanter sur ma guitare
Pour l’enfant que j’étais pour l’enfant que j’ai fait
Passe passe le temps
Il n’y en a plus pour très longtemps
While I was sleeping while I dreamed
The needles have turned it is too late
My childhood is so far away, it’s already tomorrow
Pass pass the time
There is no longer for a very long time
While I loved you while I had
Love is gone it’s too late
You were so pretty I am alone in my bed
Pass pass the time
There won’t be much time left
While I was singing my dear freedom
Others chained her it is too late
Some fought, I never knew
Pass pass the time
There won’t be much time left
Yet I still live yet I make love
I even sometimes sing on my guitar
For the child I was for the child I made
Pass pass the time
There won’t be much time left
Mu good ole boy In corduroy You’ve made my joy