Paris Métèque Lyrics in English Gaël Faye

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Below, I translated the lyrics of the song Paris Métèque by Gaël Faye from French to English.

I've landed, Paris, from a world where people dream of you

I've fled the perils, the deserts where people die

You opened your arms to me, you, my Venus de Milo

You shone too bright for me, I only saw your halo

That's why I open it, my mouth's a museum

I live far from the plush and the muted lights

In your cruel alleys or your cop-packed boulevards

In the trowel music of chaophonic silences

Paris, my lovely beauty, your suitors jostle

In the thick fog of your fine particles

Me, to deserve you, I'll write you poems

I'll sing them once night falls, standing on stage

Paris wakes beneath an oceanic sky

The titi accent mixes with Asia, America, Africa

I'm a timid flower in the cracks of the concrete

Earning pennies, sleeping beneath the bridges

Bohemian Paris, immigrant Paris, Paris of anchors and exile

I prance for love while a Chinese girl in Belleville meditates

Leonardo da Vinci breaks his back on a building site

I see life in pink in these Pakistani arms

It spins, the flashing light, little carousel horse

Gallops after the riflemen who shrink the Eiffel Tower

From a squat, a shantytown, a maid's room or a shelter

I write you poems where sometimes I want to drown

A city of freedom for different people

Suitcases of exiles, wandering Jews and Roma

To memories of pogroms, to crossed-out grimoires

From the roads of Yerevan to the trails of Crimea

Caravans of stateless folk, boat people, caravel

On your pediments, Paris, they come to read the universal

And often I resent you, scornful and haughty

Capital of the world, playing the socialite

Let us constellate the real night you ignore

Stop making the thousand lights of your décor sparkle

Paris, my beauty, I love you when the lights go out

You don't write poems for a city that's already a poem

Outro

Paris, my beauty, I love you when the lights go out

You don't write poems for a city that's already a poem

Paris, my beauty, I love you when the lights go out

You don't write poems for a city that's already a poem

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SONG MEANING

Gaël Faye’s “Paris Métèque” is a love letter filled with graffiti, grit, and glowing city lights. The French-Rwandan rapper-poet lands in Paris like a wide-eyed newcomer, escaping deserts and danger, only to find a city that shimmers so brightly he can barely look at it. As he wanders through cramped alleys, bustling boulevards, squats, and tiny attic rooms, he paints Paris as a melting pot where accents from Asia, America, and Africa swirl with the old “titi” slang. The song’s speaker is both dazzled and frustrated: he adores the beauty, artistic promise, and freedom the capital embodies, yet he bristles at its snobbery, pollution, and heavy police presence.

“Paris Métèque” celebrates the city’s migrants, dreamers, and night-time poets—the workers who rebuild landmarks, the refugees clutching suitcases, the lovers crafting verses under dim streetlights. Faye flips between admiration and reproach, reminding Paris that its true brilliance lies in those overlooked “constellations” of ordinary people rather than in glittering tourist façades. Ultimately, he confesses he only fully loves Paris when its lights switch off, because the city itself is already a poem.

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Gaël Faye Paris Métèque Lyrics