Varnishing Identity (with Enrico Macias)

J'aime la simplicité (I like simplicity)
Des journées d'été (days of summer)
Ces petits moments superbes, (these small superb moments)
Déjeuners sur l'herbe (lunches on grass)
J'aime les cafés en hiver (I like coffee in winter)
Passer boire un verre (come to drink a glass)
Attraper la chance aux cartes (?)
Juste avant qu'elle parte (Just before it leaves)




The old man’s search for his identity card in the Mediterranean took him great time and he was lost to be surrounded suddenly by sharks. A hand suddenly, a human hand, came from above to sink deep into the blue sea where the old man was holding his breath frightened. The hand held the old man from his collar and drag him to Europe. “Ah! Enrico Macias!” the two old men embraced each other. Macias asked the old man about Oran, Alger, and Constantine and the old man had to lie a little about his trip just to let a smile to draw itself in the face of Macias, this Algerian Jew who started celebrating the arrival of the old man to Europe simply, as usual, by a song, and a glass of Algerian wine.


J'aime la musique toute nue “I love music all naked”
Les bals dans la rue “the balls in the street”
Les amours qui durent un soir “the love stories that last one evening”
Les danses inconnues “the unknown dances”
J'aime quand à la fin des matchs “I love it when at the end of games”
On plaisante, on tchatche “we celebrate, we tchatche”
Et quand on raconte nos drames “and when we tell our dramas”
“to our holy wives”

The old man wanted to visit Romania since long time and to be bitten by a female Dracula. Macias took him to Transylvania and the old man fall in love with a huge tree which he started to dance with a Romanian dance. When the old man and Macias were about to leave a female Dracula approached the old man. She surrounded him with her wide colored gypsy skirt which dances to the wind. “Just, not from my neck” he requested while she wanted to bite him. He struggled to escape from her but she was very insistent to mix her blood with his so he received many bites while the music continued, dancing got more spontaneous, and laughing more deep while the old man came back to Iraq, and Macias headed for Andalusia after a warm embracing and laughter for the extraordinary journey.

J'aime les copains et les blagues “I love friends and jokes”
Certaines un peu vagues “certainties which are little vague”
Comme les chagrins qu'on partage “like sorrows which one shares”
A n'importe quel âge “with any age”
J'aime les familles qui se quittent “I love families who when depart”
On rit, on s'embrasse ! “we laugh, we embrace each other”
On se dit "Revenez vite “saying to each other “return quickly….
Parce que la vie passe !" …..because life passes!”

Jan Dammu was sitting on the faint moon at Dawn eating a pear and contemplating while a black hungry cat was searching in the trashes of Baghdad. She found a cigarette and took it as a breakfast. Acidity started to grow up in her slim body. Jan Dammu gave her what was left from his pear, actually a big deal. The old man came to Al Meedan sequare to join Jan Dammu sitting at the faint moon of the dawn. Dammu said: “I kept varnishing the colors in old painting to find something but I found this faint moon. Don’t know what it means… I just gave my pear to the black cat. Did you have breakfast?”

“I brought pistachio from Romania! Here!” the old man handled Dammu a grasp of pistachio. “Romania?” Dammu asked. The old man told him the story while the black cat made coffee for the three of them.


On est tous les memes (we are all the same)
Dans cette histoire (in this history)
Qui finit dans l'noir (which ends in black)
Je dis "les mêmes" (I say “the same”)
C'est pas sûr qu'on se ressemble (it’s not sure that we are similar)
On est bien ensemble ! (We are good together!)
La vie, la vie populaire, (the life, the popular life)
C'est toute ma vie passagère (it is all my momentary life)
La vie, la vie populaire,
J'ai envie qu'elle n'soit jamais finie (I want that it will never end)
La vie, la vie populaire,
C'était la vie de ma mere (life of my mother)
Et celle du père de mon père (and that of the father of my father)
Rien à faire, c'est ma vie sur la Terre (nothing to make it is my life in the earth)