Mon Frère Lyrics in English Maxime Le Forestier

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Below, I translated the lyrics of the song Mon Frère by Maxime Le Forestier from French to English.

You, the brother I never had

Do you know if you'd lived

What we'd have done together

A year after me, you'd have been born

Then we'd never have left each other

Like two friends who look alike

We'd have learned slang by heart

I'd have been your teacher

At my playing-hooky school

Sure someday we'd have fought

If back then we'd known

The same junior year together

But you're not here

Whose fault is it

Not my father's

Not my mother's

You could've sung this

You, the brother I never had

If you knew how much I've drunk

Of my sorrows all alone

If you hadn't stood me up

You would've finished my songs

I'd have taught you to write them

If life had behaved better

It would've split in two

The pairs of gloves, the pairs of slaps

It would've surely shared

The love words and the cobblestones

The girls and the baton blows

But you're not here

Whose fault is it

Not my father's

Not my mother's

You could've sung this

You, the brother I'll never have

I'm less alone for having made you

For a moment, for a girl

I bothered you, you'll forgive me

Here, when everything lets you down

We build ourselves a family

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“Mon Frère” is Maxime Le Forestier’s tender letter to the brother who never was. Through vivid daydreams, the singer rewinds time and pictures a playful partner-in-crime: sharing schoolyard slang, scribbling songs together, swapping gloves and even arguments. Each imagined scene sparkles with camaraderie, then fades into the quiet truth that life never granted him this sibling. The refrain “Mais tu n’es pas là” lands like a soft sigh, gently pointing the blame away from his parents and toward fate itself.

Yet the song is anything but bleak. By inventing this brother, Le Forestier shows how creativity can fill the gaps that reality leaves behind. Loneliness turns into lyrical fuel, and an “imaginary family” rises where abandonment once stood. Both nostalgic and hopeful, the track reminds listeners that when life withholds connections, music and imagination can step in to weave their own comforting bonds.

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Maxime Le Forestier Mon Frère Lyrics