'Monsieur, Madame' wanted out
I woke up to a phone vibrating somewhere between the sheets. Rob and I were still half-asleep, tangled together, and I seriously considered ignoring it until it stopped but Rob groaned, and I felt his hand searching for where the noise was coming from. He found it before I did and glanced at the screen.
“It’s Tom,” he sighed. “Get it.”
I checked the time. It was almost ten in the morning, a reasonable time to call, technically, but we’d fallen asleep around three so it still fell too early.
“Yeah…,” I muttered, eyes still closed.
“Morning, did I wake you?” Tom asked.
“Yeah, you did.”
“Sorry, but I just got off the phone with BMG,” he paused and added, “… again.”
I let out a long breath. “Tom… I swear to God, you have one job. One. And that is to not call me about this and just handle it.”
He let out a quiet laugh. “Yeah, I tried that. They’re not making this easy for me.”
“I know that … but it’s still your job so I don’t care, handle it.”
“Mark, do you at least want to know what the numbers look like before you say that?”
“No,” I said immediately. “I really, really don’t.”
Rob shifted beside me, already giggling, and I reached back and smacked the back of his head without even opening my eyes.
Tom kept going anyway. “They’ve more than doubled since last week. And not gradually, it’s spiking. Comments, shares, everything. It’s getting a bit out of hand.”
I dragged a hand over my face. “It’s one clip from a TV show. People will move on.”
“That’s what I said,” Tom replied. “They strongly disagree.”
“Uh, that’s just fantastic.”
Tom went quiet for a few seconds, just long enough for me to feel it coming.
“They want to talk to you.”
I opened my eyes. “No.”
“They’re calling in about an hour.”
“Tom,”
“And before you start,” he cut in, “I’ve already told them you’re not on board, over and over again. I’ve told them you don’t see this as a thing. I’ve told them all of it. They still want you on the call.”
Rob let out a quiet laugh beside me, clearly enjoying this way too much.
“You’re joking,” I said. “Please tell me you’re joking.”
“I wish I was. Do you want me on the call with you? I can stay on, keep it from turning into a full ambush. It’ll be A&R, marketing, probably someone from the France team too.”
I stared into space for a second, processing absolutely none of it.
“You know what,” I said finally, “I’m hanging up.”
“Mark,”
I ended the call.
I dropped my phone onto the mattress and slowly turned my head toward Rob.
“You’re so dead,” I said. “You are so dead.”
He grinned. “That’s fair. I’ll accept that.”
I lunged for him before he could react, going straight for his side, the one spot he absolutely couldn’t stand. He yelped as I pinned him down, one knee trapping his legs, my hand digging in mercilessly.
“Oh no, no, no, you don’t,” he laughed, already twisting to get away.
“Years,” I said, not letting up for a second. “Years, over a decade, I’ve been very successfully not doing this, and somehow you’ve managed to ruin it in, what, a month?”
“Actually, I ruined it in five minutes!” he said. “And I’m still not sorry!” he added, laughing helplessly.
“Oh, you should be,” I said, grinning now, pressing harder just to hear him lose it.
“Mark, come on,” he tried, squirming under me, completely trapped.
I stopped for half a second.
He inhaled like he’d just been granted mercy, and I went straight back in.
“Oh, you’re the worst,” he laughed, trying and failing to push me off.
“And yet,” I said, relentless, “you’re still proud of yourself.”
“Yeah, worth it, totally worth it!”
He was still laughing, breathless, completely at my mercy, and somehow… I couldn’t even get him to feel slightly sorry.
I finally let go and collapsed beside him. We lay there, catching our breath.
I shook my head, staring at the ceiling. “I should just release Monsieur, Madame at this point. Really give them something to obsess over.”
Rob’s laughter died instantly.
“Don’t say that like it’s a joke.”
I turned my head toward him. “Why not? It is a joke.”
“No, it’s not,” he said, pushing himself up on one elbow, suddenly serious. “You’ve been sitting on that for years, and you know it’s good.”
I let out a small breath, already shaking my head. “It’s not even a song.”
“You keep saying that,” he said, “but it doesn’t make it less of one.”
I looked away, running a hand through my hair.
“It was never meant to be one,” I insisted. “It’s just… something I wrote, it’s just a text, I wrote it in the middle of the night, half asleep, in twenty minutes. It’s too long, it’s messy, it’s,”
“Honest?” he cut in.
I didn’t answer straight away.
“Fucking incredible?”
I gave him a look. “That’s not helping.”
“It’s true.”
“Rob, you don’t get it. I don’t want to sing that. Just because I can sing doesn’t mean I want to be out there doing it, with people listening, analysing every word.”
He didn’t interrupt this time, just watched me.
“I wrote that because I needed to,” I went on. “It wasn’t for anyone else. It wasn’t even supposed to leave my notebook. You weren’t even supposed to read it.”
I looked away.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “That if people are going to hear anything… you’d rather it be that one.”
“…Yeah,” I admitted.
I hesitated.
“…I guess.”
“So now you wish I could’ve played that instead?” he said.
I let out a short breath. “No. Because that one… it’s too much,” I said. “That one actually means something.”
He didn’t interrupt.
“But ‘Les étoiles’ ,“ I added, letting out a quiet, almost embarrassed laugh. “You know I just recorded it for fun. You know I was messing around, making it pop on purpose, not even thinking about it.”
“Yeah, that’s what makes it so fun to listen to, and it’s about us too, it’s happy, it’s joyful.”
I turned toward him.
“It’s embarrassing.”
He studied for a second, then shook his head.
“I don’t think so.”
“Yeah, well,” I muttered, “you’re still not objective.”
“Or,” he said, lying back down, “maybe you’re just used to hearing it one way, and everyone else is hearing it differently.”
I didn’t answer.
After a second, he nudged my shoulder.
“So… still killing me?”
I sighed.
“…Yes.”
He smiled.
“So worth it.”
“Rob, be serious for two seconds. This is how it starts. People hear it, then suddenly it becomes a whole thing, when I was just having a laugh… or… if we’re still talking about Monsieur, Madame, it, it’s the complete opposite and people will start asking questions, what it means, who it’s about, It’s way too personal… too emotional. Honestly, it almost feels like it wrote itself, not me.”
Rob tilted his head slightly. “You know what this sounds like, right?”
I groaned.
“It sounds like you’re scared.”
I pulled a pillow over my face. “I’m not scared.”
He laughed, tugging it away. “You are. You’re scared of going back there,” he went on. “Of having to feel all of it again. Because it’s hard, and it hurts, and it’s over ten years old, and you’ve moved on, so why would you go back?”
I didn’t move.
“Well… maybe it’s because now, you actually can. You can let it go… and share it. Maybe even help someone else with it. Probably help a lot of people, actually.”
I let out a muffled groan and buried my face in the mattress.
A second later, his arms wrapped around me, pulling me back against him.
“Hey,” he murmured. “You don’t have to decide anything right now. Just… don’t shut it down before you’ve even thought about it properly.”
I stayed quiet.
“You know what, I say, when we get home, you record it, properly record it. You’ve already got it on piano, so… just keep it simple and raw. You on the piano, singing it. Just … perform it as you record it, like a studio version of what it already is.”
I didn’t answer straight away.
“On verra,” I said eventually.
He smiled. I could hear it.
“Okay. I can work with that.”
“Rob, when a French person says ‘we’ll see,’ it means ‘no’.
He laughed.
“Babe, I’m just quoting you. You know that feeling you get, when a song’s about to drop? You can feel it coming, and you can’t control it. It’s just coming and you have to wait and try to be there when it happens, because if you’re not, you miss it, and then it’s gone forever, you don’t get that moment back.”
He paused slightly and I turned around.
“And when you miss it … you usually regret it, because you don’t know what you might’ve missed.”
I just looked at him.
“And when you tell me that sometimes, it’s like … voices, almost,” he said, “like something or someone’s whispering to you and you have to be there when it arrives, to write it, to write the words, or the music, whatever it is…”
I nodded. He had explained it perfectly.
“Well, it’s the same. This is a moment. And I really think you should take it. Those songs have been sitting in a drawer for years and it kind of feels like it’s their time. Like they want out, and you’re the one who can let them, maybe you’re supposed to just … act as a messenger and let people hear them.”
He hesitated.
“I know you’d rather keep those songs to yourself, but I swear… they’re so powerful … especially in French.”
I didn’t say anything. There was too much to process.
He leaned in, pressing his lips to mine.
We kissed tenderly.
“Promise me you’ll try. Just… record it and then… then we’ll see.”
His tongue brushed around mine and for a few seconds, I stopped thinking.
“I’m hungry,” I said when we broke apart.
He smiled. “Yeah, same. Want to go down to the restaurant?”
“Yeah. I need to eat something before they call.”
“I’m gonna hit the gym after. You’ll join me when you’re done?”
I nodded.
****
Tom was already on when I joined the group call.
“Hey,” he said. “Is Rob still alive?”
“Barely,” I said with a small laugh.
A couple of other voices joined and Tom introduced me to them.
“Hi Mark, thanks for taking the time.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Hi.”
“So… we watched Le Quotidien,” one of them said after a short pause. He had a French accent so I knew he was the France rep. “More than once. Like a lot of people.”
I let out a breath. “Yeah. I figured.”
“And just to say it upfront,” he added, “we know that wasn’t planned.”
I gave a short laugh. “Good. Because it really wasn’t.”
A female voice picked up. “I think what really stuck with people is how it happened. You trying to stop it, then just… disappearing under the desk while it’s playing.”
I covered my eyes with my hand. “Yeah. That wasn’t my proudest moment.”
“Honestly?” she said. “That’s part of why it worked.”
“That was not intentional,” I said.
“No, exactly,” she replied. “It felt real. Like something slipping out that wasn’t supposed to.”
“And then you just kind of… let it happen,” the France rep added, almost laughing. “While Robbie’s turning it into a whole moment.”
I let out a breath. “Yeah. He loves doing this to me.”
“Yes, Robbie getting the audience involved, getting them to sing along…” he went on.
“And then the whole ‘divorce him? no. murder him? maybe,’” the woman added. “That’s everywhere.”
I laughed. “Great!”
“But people love that,” she said. “It makes it feel human, not staged.”
I leaned back in my chair. “It wasn’t meant for anyone to hear.”
“Yeah,” she said, softer. “We get that.”
“But now that they’ve heard it,” the France rep said, “they want more than that clip.”
I sighed. “Of course they do. They want it on Spotify, I’m guessing.”
He let out a small chuckle. “Spotify, Amazon music, Apple music…. That’s the main thing we’re seeing. People love the moment, but they want to hear the song properly. Without the talking, without the audience… just the track.”
“Yeah,” the woman added, “a clean version.”
I shook my head. “The version Rob played is the version.”
There was a small pause.
“We recorded it at home,” I went on. “In our studio. That’s not some rough demo. That’s it. That’s the track.”
“Okay,” she said, listening.
“And the recording itself?” she asked. “You’re happy with it?”
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s good. As good as it’s going to get without turning it into something else. When a song is done, it’s done. I don’t want to clean it up or redo it. What people heard, that’s exactly what it is.”
“Alright,” she said. “Then we can do that, we don’t have to change anything. That actually makes things simpler.”
I let out a quiet breath.
“Yeah, but you’re missing something. I don’t want to do that,” I said. “I’ve been telling Tom that for a month now.”
“But at this point,” the France rep said, “people are actively looking for it. It’s not slowing down.”
“Then let them look,” I said. “They’ve got the clip.”
“Yeah,” he said gently. “But that’s not really you deciding what people hear.”
I rubbed my face.
“I don’t care what people hear. If you don’t want this to spiral out of control, why don’t you just take it down?” I said. “Everything. The video, the reposts… all of it.”
“I get why you’d want that,” he said.
“Okay,” I said. “So, do that.”
“It’s already too far out there,” he replied. “You take one down, ten more show up.”
“So, you keep taking them down.”
Tom let out a quiet breath. “Mark…”
“What?”
“You’d have an easier time killing Rob.”
I laughed. “…still an option.”
That got a proper laugh from everyone.
“To be fair,” I added, “this is entirely his fault.”
“From what we saw, yeah,” the woman said.
“And just so you know,” she continued, “trying to pull it down usually makes it spread more because people notice. At this point, the best thing to do is to do what Rob suggested and what we are suggesting to you right now. You release it.”
I let out a short laugh. “Oh great. So, he wins and I lose.”
“At least then it’s yours,” Tom said. “It’s your song, nobody can steal it, turn it into something else, or start putting out unofficial versions…”
I leaned back, staring into space. “Yeah, but that’s the thing… it’s not my song. I don’t want it to be my song. I don’t even want my name on it, even if I wrote it. I don’t care what people do with it.”
I let out a sigh.
“I don’t want to release music if it’s not for the band. That’s not what I do. I’m a guitarist. And yeah, sharing a few songs I’ve written sounds nice, writing for other artists, stuff we can’t use for the band, sure, why not, but I don’t want to suddenly be putting music out like I’m some solo artist and take the focus away from the band.”
I hesitated.
“And honestly… this song’s just, it’s not… it’s private. It’s in French. It’s not a U-N-I song. And I don’t … ,” I sighed then added, “I don’t know if you understand.”
“We do. We do,” Tom said. “I know French has always been off the table, I know how you feel about it, but …”
“But what?” I asked.
“You wouldn’t be taking anything away from the band with a song in French. If anything, it’s separate. It’s not in English, it’s not what you do with U-N-I, it’s something else and it’s supposed to be different.”
“Can I ask you something?” The France rep said.
“Go on.”
“That song… it doesn’t feel like a one-off. When Robbie said you’ve written more in French, you didn’t really deny it. Is that true?”
I didn’t answer straight away.
“…Yeah,” I said finally. “But they’re not really finished songs.”
“Okay.”
“They’re just things I write. Sometimes, I record them so I don’t forget. That’s it. No one’s supposed to hear them. It’s like … a diary, in a way.”
“So, there are a few of those?”
I hesitated.
“…Yeah.”
No one jumped on it.
“And the one from the show, that’s one of them?”
“Yeah, I suppose it is, it’s just poppier than the others … But the rest aren’t for this,” I added.
“Of course,” he said immediately. “We’re only talking about the one people already heard.”
Tom stepped back in. “So… can you think about releasing it on platforms?”
I exhaled slowly.
“You know what,” I said, “people have already heard it. So, what difference does it make? You want to release it, fine. Release it. I can’t exactly stop you.”
“Mark, you can, but,” Tom started.
“Can you send us the original recording?” the France rep asked.
“Maybe, if you want. Look, let’s be very clear. I’m not performing it, I’m not singing it live, I’m not doing promo, nothing.”
“That’s fine,” he said.
“This song was just… me messing around,” I added. “Something fun. The others I wrote are not like that.”
“We understand,” he said. “But if you’re willing to share the original recording with us, we can listen to it properly,” he said. “And… if you’re comfortable, maybe some of the other songs you’ve written as well?”
I hesitated for half a second.
“Don’t push your luck.”
They laughed.
And then I thought about what Rob and I had talked about earlier, about those other songs. Especially Monsieur, Madame.
“You know,” I said, “if I’m being honest… I’m really not comfortable with the idea of releasing this song on its own. If I’m going to put my name on it, I’d much rather release some kind of EP and just hide that song in it, along with better ones.”
“Really?”
“Really. Because releasing this song … it’s just embarrassing.”
“We hear you,” the France rep said. “And that’s something we can talk about.”
“No,” I added, shaking my head, “I didn’t say I wanted to talk about it, I’m just saying, I don’t like the idea of releasing this one song on its own.”
“But right now, there’s already momentum around this one. We’d be building on something that’s already happening.”
He let out a small laugh. “But if the others are better… then we definitely want to hear them.”
“Maybe, you will, maybe you won’t, I have to think about it.”
“Please, think fast,” he joked.
We talked a little while longer and after a couple of easy goodbyes, the line went dead.
I stayed there for a moment, phone still in my hand.
Then I muttered, “…I’m still going to kill him.”
I wasn’t supposed to be thinking about those songs again.
And yet… they were already there, and my mind went straight to Monsieur, Madame.
****
When I walked into the gym, Rob was already mid-rep, lying on the bench with the bar hovering over his chest and I instantly saw my opportunity.
I grabbed the bar, pressing it down just as he was lifting.
He let out a strained laugh, his muscles trembling as he fought against it.
“Oh, no, no, don’t, don’t,” he breathed, fully aware of exactly what I was doing.
“Say you’re sorry,” I said, grinning.
“No,” he shot back, even as the bar dipped dangerously close to his throat.
I held it there for a beat, just enough to make my point, before releasing it. He shoved the weight back up and racked it.
“Well, you’ve won,” I said.
“I have?” he asked, catching his breath.
“Yeah. They want the song released on platforms,” I said as I dropped onto the bench.
“I know they do.” He sat up so fast I barely had time to move before he grabbed me, pulled me in, and kissed my face. “I’m so proud of myself.”
“It’s a nightmare,” I muttered.
“It’s not a nightmare,” he said as I got up and he followed me. “People love it. And this world needs love.”
“Yeah.”
“So, what did you say?” he asked, still buzzing.
I looked at him for a second. “I told them I’d send them the song… and that maybe…”
He blinked. “Wait… seriously? You said yes?”
“No. I said, ‘fine, do whatever you want’ after a month of saying no,” I corrected.
“So… you kind of said yes.”
“Actually, do you want to know what I said?” I asked, still a bit bewildered with myself.
“What?” he said, laughing.
“I said I wasn’t comfortable releasing the song on its own, and that I’d rather hide it on an EP, with better songs … so it’s not as embarrassing.”
He laughed. “You’re fucking with me. You did not say that.”
“But apparently, I did. And now they want to hear what else I’ve got.”
“Oh my god,” he said, looking way too pleased with himself. “So, I can soon listen to them on Spotify with your name on it?”
I groaned and he smiled.
“So, this is happening because of me, right? Just to be clear.”
“Wait, you don’t expect me to thank you, do you?”
“Not right now,” he said, smiling. “But I’ll be waiting. I’m patient, I’ll collect later.”
I shook my head.
“We need to start working on the new album again,” I said, “so I can forget all of this.”
“Or… we could start with that EP.”
I ignored him, grabbed my headphones, and got on the treadmill, pretending I hadn’t heard a word.
He was still smiling, which I knew, was definitely a problem.
****
A few days later, we were back in London, finally picking up work on our fifth album again. We’d spent the better part of two days stuck in the studio, barely moving, and I was starting to feel restless, like I needed to burn off some energy.
I reached for my phone. It was 7:23. I scrolled through a few emails. Behind me, Rob had an arm draped over my waist, I felt him shift slightly as he started to wake.
“Are you awake?” I asked softly.
“…kinda,” he murmured.
“It’s so early for you,” I giggled.
“Yeah. My body woke up. My personality didn’t,” he joked.
“Since you’re awake…” I tilted my head back toward him, smiling. “Wanna go for a run?”
“Uh, … that’s disgusting,” he groaned.
I laughed.
“I love you, but no.”
“Come on, we’ve done nothing but sit in the studio for two days.”
“Admit it,” he muttered, tightening his arm around me, “you love cardio more than me.”
“That’s not true. I just love when you do cardio with me.”
“Going for a run is not the cardio I want to do with you.”
“What if I offered motivation?” I asked, turning to face him.
He cracked one eye open. “What motivation?”
I grinned. “A blowjob.”
“That’ll just make me go right back to sleep.”
“Well… can I do it anyway?”
“Like you need to ask.”
“Well, I kinda feel like I do. Last time I broke the ‘not before 9’ rule, you basically told me to fuck off.”
He let out a small laugh. “I’m sure I didn’t say that.”
“No, you said, ‘get lost, it’s too early’.”
“See,” he giggled. “I don’t remember, I must’ve been talking in my sleep.”
“You seemed pretty awake to me,” I teased, brushing soft kisses across his chest, “… be honest, you don’t look like you’re suffering,” I said, feeling his growing erection through his underwear and giving it a gentle squeeze
His lips twitched.
“I guess I can make an exception,” he murmured, “if it means you won’t make me run at… what time is it?”
“7:30.”
He groaned and grabbed my pillow. He pressed it over his face, arms wrapped around it and stayed still.
“So, I can only have fun with your dick?”
“You’ll manage without me,” he muttered. “Make do with what you have,” he added lazily.
I shifted up slightly, nudging him. “Fais avec ce que je te donne,” I shot back, teasing.
He let out a quiet laugh into the pillow.
I smiled and slid my body down, quickly lowering down his underwear to his ankles and he did the rest. I wrapped my hand around his hard shaft, pulling down his foreskin to lick the tip greedily, he tasted just like him and it was intoxicating.
I enjoyed sucking on his head for a moment and then, I took off my own underwear and wondered what I could do to get him to participate.
I took hold of both our dicks and stroked us for a few seconds and then, I positioned myself so that the tip of my cock head touched his cock head and we were slit to slit.
I applied a little pressure on both our heads with my fingers as I did this. I loved the sensation and usually he did too.
“Oh, fuck,” he moaned as I slowly let my foreskin slide over his cockhead. I knew that’d get him to react and he started to push back and forth gently inside my foreskin.
I heard his breathing change and he removed the pillow and his hand replaced mine. He started masturbating us, and then he pulled my foreskin back and I moaned as I watched my cock head moving back and forth under his foreskin.
Our slits started to leak pre-cum and lubricated our movements. I looked down at our connected cocks, feeling more and more pleasure as we took turns wanking each off inside the other’s foreskin.
I placed my hands on his shoulders to steady myself and he pulled me down for a kiss.
“Blow me again,” he moaned in my mouth.
So I did.
I ran my tongue around his head some more, then wrapped my lips around his shaft and took his whole dick in my mouth, burying my face in his pubes, and started sucking him, making sure the suction would make him want to bust.
As I devoured his gorgeous manhood, I felt Rob’s hands on my sides. He pulled me closer and gestured me to position myself above him.
Mission accomplished, I thought as he fondled my balls. A wave of ecstasy flooded my body when I felt his tongue darting back and forth my length and then engulfing me completely.
He soon started going faster and faster. I met his pace, knowing we wouldn’t last much longer. My finger searched for his hole and teased it for a few seconds. Then I pressed against it and stuck my forefinger inside, not going for his prostate, just teasing his hole, knowing it would send a twitch through him.
Sure enough, Rob let out a deep moan and thrust into my mouth. I sucked harder, my tongue darting around.
“Fuck, I’m gonna cum, babe,” he groaned with pleasure a few moments later.
I didn’t pull away and he unloaded into my throat. I sucked him dry, swallowing his cum.
Then he pushed me onto my side and it didn’t take long before my cock started to tingle and I erupted inside his mouth too, my body convulsing a little in a perfect wave of bliss.
After, we just laid in bed together for a moment, perfectly comfortable, our bodies closely intertwined.
“Stay with me,” Rob said.
“Okay,” I whispered.
I waited for him to fall back asleep, gently caressing him all the while, then got up once I knew he wouldn’t care if I was gone.
***
I wasn’t sure I wanted to go for a run anymore. My mood had shifted. Instead, I found myself drifting toward the music room. I pushed the door open and stepped inside.
I opened a drawer and picked up one of the display books where I kept all the texts I wrote and printed. This one was only for my French texts, and I hadn’t added anything to it in over a year.
I sat down in the armchair and flipped through it slowly, reading bits and pieces.
I stopped on one I had already put into music, called Je t’haine, a kind of play on words with je t’aime, though it wasn’t something you’d actually say. I remembered how much I’d loved writing it, and how much Rob had loved it too, since it was about us. It made me smile, briefly, before I moved on.
Then Monsieur, Madame appeared. I stopped turning the pages. I knew this was the one I had opened the display book for.
I read it once. Then again. And again. I almost wanted to cry, but I breathed through it. The melody started to come back, slowly, until reading it turned into singing it in my head.
By the eighth time, I didn’t need the page anymore. I knew it. Every word, every feeling, it all came back.
I had written it around the time we were working on Fix You, not long after I found out James wasn’t my biological father.
I remember how it came out. I wasn’t trying to control it. I just needed to say things that had to come out, and the words poured out of me so fast, almost like they already existed somewhere, like something was telling me what to write.
It was raw, a little messy. But it was honest.
There was a lot in it. It touched on different things, asked questions, because I’d always done that. Asked questions about myself, about everything. And it held everything I loved about music. The piano. The voice. The melody. The meaning behind the words. It didn’t try to answer anything, it just asked.
Reading it, it felt familiar, like that part of me had never really gone anywhere.
I turned the laptop on. The piano recording was there and I listened to it once. That was enough. It was already back in my head.
I sat at the piano and started playing. I was surprised at how easily it came, I didn’t have to think. My hands knew where to go and I knew I could sing without losing the thread, so I did. The first lines came out quietly, then the rest followed.
I stopped after the fourth verse, letting my hands wander across the keys for a moment. There were eleven verses, after all.
When I turned my head, Rob was standing in the doorway, one shoulder leaning against the doorframe. I hadn’t heard him come in.
“I thought you were sleeping,” I said.
He didn’t answer right away. He just stood there, looking at me.
“I just…” I began saying.
“You know…” he interrupted quietly.
He ran a hand through his hair, his eyes never leaving mine.
“There are people like that. They open their mouths, and you hear their soul.”
He hesitated.
“You’re one of them. I’ve always thought you had that…. quality. The way you sing, everything comes straight out of you. And when we hear it, it hits us immediately.”
I didn’t know what to say. There was something in his voice, something honest and real, that caught me off guard.
“I’m gonna go,” he added. “Somewhere. Not here. I’ll leave you alone. Just… keep doing what you’re doing. Call me when you want me to come back.”
I stayed quiet, watching him as he stepped back and closed the door.
Then I turned back to the piano.
And I started playing again.
***
Rob didn’t push it after that. He didn’t bring it up. Not once. One night, he went to bed, but I didn’t. I wasn’t tired, and I just knew it was time. I called Dylan, hoping he hadn’t gone to bed…but I knew that he’d just get up anyway if he had.
He picked up after a couple of rings. “You okay?”
“I’m going back to the studio,” I said when he answered. “I might need your help.”
There was a pause. “Now?”
“Yeah.”
“Alright … Just give me a few minutes.”
When he walked in, he glanced at me. “So… what are we doing first?”
“Vocals,” I said. I needed to get it over with.
We were in the middle of recording the album, so everything was already set up. It took us less than ten minutes to get started.
I did one take over the instrumental I already had.
I was so focused, so deep in my head, that the words just came out and the emotions did the rest. There was no second-guessing, I just sang on instinct. I found the balance somehow, connecting enough to feel it, but not so much that I’d lose control, just enough for the emotion to come through. I knew it was the right way to sing it, but I couldn’t help wondering if I’d ever be able to put myself back in that state again.
I didn’t say anything when it ended. I just stood there, headphones still on, staring straight ahead.
Through the glass, Dylan hadn’t moved either.
Then, he leaned forward, pressing the talkback.
“Holy fuck, Mark…”
His voice was quiet, not shocked, just… hit.
“Do you think you can you do that again?”
I shook my head almost immediately, pulling the headphones down around my neck, wrung out.
“No. I’m not sure how I even managed that.”
He held my gaze for a second, then gave a small nod.
“Yeah,” he said softly. “Okay. You really went back there.”
He leaned back, running a hand over his face, still processing.
“That was…” he exhaled, shaking his head slightly. “Yeah. That was it.”
Then he glanced down at the session, back at me. “We can rebuild everything around that.”
I frowned slightly. “What do you mean?”
“The piano,” he said. “It doesn’t have to lead it anymore.”
I looked back through the glass at him.
“We’ll follow you instead,” he added. “Your timing, your phrasing… all of it.”
So, we recorded the piano, and it came out even better. I knew it wasn’t final, that I’d come back to it and have a cellist add strings… but it was enough. It was there.
***
The next morning, Rob walked into the kitchen, asking if he could do anything to help. A couple of gay friends were coming over, and I had started making something for lunch. We wanted their opinion on a few tracks, and we knew they’d be blunt. We trusted them completely.
I told him no, then handed him my laptop and told him he could listen to Monsieur, Madame instead. He didn’t even know I had gone to the studio to record it. He just knew I had gone to bed late, and quickly understood why.
He looked at me, taken aback, but he didn’t ask any questions. I showed him where to find the file, and he didn’t hesitate. He went to grab headphones in the living room, sat at the kitchen table, leaned forward, and buried his head in his arms, sometimes covering his face with his hands as the song played.
I kept cooking, pretending not to watch him for six minutes and twenty seconds. The whole song.
But I could feel him reacting.
When it ended, he stayed still for a moment. Then he slowly lifted his head and looked up at me, with tears in his eyes.
He pulled the headphones off, but kept holding them in his hands for a second, like he needed a bit of time to come back. Then he stood up and pulled me into a hug, holding me tight, tighter than usual, for a long moment, like he needed it as much as I did.
I felt him breathe in, slowly, and I let him hold me for as long as he wanted.
“Please,” he said quietly against my shoulder, “tell me you’re going to let people hear this.”
“Maybe. Maybe the label first. I’ll see what they say.”
He let out a short breath, almost a laugh, but it didn’t quite get there.
“Fuck, you killed me. This song is a fucking masterpiece. I don’t know if you realize that.”
“Not really, no.”
“I’m so proud of you.”
I just nodded.
“I know it’s hard for you to be proud of yourself, but I’ll be proud twice as much.”
His thumb brushed absentmindedly along my arm, his other hand firm between my shoulder blades, before he let go and stepped back.
He took a breath, like he wasn’t sure what to do with himself.
“You know what, can you give me a minute?” he asked, almost apologetically. “I just need a minute. I’m going to go upstairs while you finish this,” he said, gesturing toward the stove. “I need to listen to it again.”
“Okay,” I said softly.
He grabbed the laptop and left the kitchen.
I couldn’t blame him. I had listened to Magic dozens of times when he wrote it before I could even think about stopping.
I smiled. We were in such a strong creative mood. I absolutely loved it. It was what I loved most about my life, those moments, I thought.
***
The label was still waiting for me to send them the song Rob had played in France. They kept following up, and I kept telling them I needed more time. Dylan, Rob and I worked on Monsieur, Madame for a few more days. We brought in a cellist to add the strings I wanted, which made it sound even better, and just polished it without changing what it was. Rob also wanted to add soft backing vocals in certain parts to enrich the sound, with light vocal layers at the end over the piano, no actual singing.
When it felt right, I sent it to Tom and told him to pass it on to the French team.
They called me the next day. I knew they would, but when I saw it was a WhatsApp group call, I got a sudden rush of anxiety. I almost didn’t pick up.
I was in the living room. Rob had gone to hang out with the others, leaving me alone for the call.
“…Hello?”
There was a long pause, so long I wondered if anyone was on the line, or if something had gone wrong with the call.
“Mark,” Tom said, quieter than usual. “I’m with Alex from A&R.”
“Yeah, hi,” I said. He said it back.
“And there’s Sophie from marketing in France, on the line.”
“Hi,” she said. “Nice to meet you.” I said it back.
“And you know Julien, our France rep, he’s with her. You’ve spoken before.”
We exchanged a few quick hellos, a couple of polite words and then, again, they didn’t speak… for too long.
“Is everything okay?” I asked.
“Yes, yes, sorry,” Tom said. “So… they, uh … they listened to it.”
“Okay.”
“…Yeah,” Sophie said, but didn’t continue right away. “We did.”
I waited.
“I don’t really know how to say this,” she started, then stopped. “I mean… I don’t know how many times I’ve listened to it since Tom sent it, but… it’s a lot.”
“Okay. Rob did that too,” I said with a small laugh.
“It’s just… it stays with you,” she said quietly. “I kept going back to it.”
“Yeah,” Julien added. “It’s really raw. The way you sing it, the notes you’re hitting… your tone is so clear, but there’s still this edge to it, and it carries so much emotion. You don’t even have to think about it, it just hits you, and it stays with you. I had to sit with it for a minute after the first listen. It’s powerful. Really honest.”
He paused.
“To be honest, it felt like a privilege to hear it.”
I swallowed.
Tom let out a quiet breath, like he was about to say something else, but he didn’t.
“This is special, Mark,” Alex said. “People are going to connect with it. If you release it, it’s going to land. It’s the kind of song that gets under your skin.”
“Yeah,” Julien said. “It’s beautiful. The emotion in it is real. You can hear it in every line.”
I didn’t say anything.
“We understand now,” he said, softer. “What you meant when you said you’d only release something in French if it was better.”
“…Yeah.”
“Do you have more like this?” he asked.
I hesitated.
“I have a few things.”
“Are they songs you’ve already recorded?” Tom asked.
I let out a breath and ran a hand through my hair. “Yes and no. They’re more like demos, or just texts I haven’t turned into music yet. I haven’t written anything in a while you know, not in French, and these songs, or these texts, most of them are quite old, I mean I wrote ‘Monsieur, Madame’ when I was 23, when I found out about my father… you know,” I said to Tom.
“Yeah, I figured,” he replied, a little emotional. “Do you want to try to work on them again?”
“Maybe,” I said, pausing, trying to find the right words. “There are, I’d say, maybe four of five that could be worth working on. But I don’t want to drag this out. If I do it, I need to do it quickly and get it over with, because it’s already taking my mind away from the record, and I need to focus on U-N-I right now. I can’t really do both. It’s too much.”
They didn’t answer right away, but the silence wasn’t uncomfortable this time. They were just quiet.
“Take your time,” Alex said. “Really. We mean that. Think about what you want to do. We’re here if you need anything. We’ll do whatever you decide. Release it, don’t release it, add more songs or not. It’s your decision.”
“Okay… that sounds reasonable.”
“Tom added you to the group chat. I don’t know if you saw. So don’t hesitate if you want to ask something or share something.”
I told them I would, and we chatted a while longer.
When the call ended, I stayed there for a moment, my phone still in my hand.
I still didn’t know if I was ever going to release that EP, but for the first time in a long time, I wanted to work on these songs, these texts, and turn them into something real, something releasable, even if I chose not to put it out.
I wasn’t going to lie to myself, though. I knew that they wouldn’t let me keep them to myself and that it wouldn’t stop there.
I reached for my laptop on the coffee table, all the songs I had already recorded were on it, there weren’t that many and they were only demos but I scrolled through them, and then stopped on ‘Monsieur Madame’.
My finger hovered over the file and I clicked.
The first notes were soft and familiar.
I leaned back in the couch, eyes fixed somewhere I wasn’t really seeing. The piano was gentle at first, then my voice came in, and I felt it immediately. It wasn’t like listening to a song, it was like going back. I hadn’t heard it like this since we finished it. Not properly. Not alone.
The words landed differently now. They carried more weight. I knew what was coming next, every line, every breath, and still, it unsettled me, because I was hearing it the way others did.
I swallowed and let it play, I didn’t skip ahead, I didn’t pause, I just… listened, all the way through.
When it ended, I stayed still for a second. Then I closed my eyes.
“…Fuck,” I muttered under my breath.
I sat there a little longer. Then I opened my eyes again and looked at the screen and all the other files, waiting. I stared at them and for the first time in I couldn’t even remember how long, I started listening to them again.
As I listened, my phone buzzed and a message from Rob appeared.
“Is the call over?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“So? Are you spiraling or are we pretending this is fine?
I let out a small laugh through my nose. I hesitated for a second, then typed,
“Both.”
“What did they say?”
They liked it.
Three dots appeared almost instantly. Then disappeared. Then came back.
“Liked it” ???
I huffed a quiet laugh.
They want more.
…more?
Yeah. They asked if I had other songs.
Oh my god.
I could practically hear him.
YOU SEE
I shook my head, already smiling
Don’t start.
I’m absolutely starting.
Another message came through before I could reply.
So, what did they say about the song, I want details
I looked back at the screen. At the file.
They said a lot, but at the same time, they didn’t know what to say.
Yeah.
I frowned slightly.
Yeah?
The reply took a second.
That sounds about right.
I stared at that for a moment.
So what are you gonna do?
I didn’t answer straight away. My eyes drifted back to the laptop. To one of the files still open.
I don’t know.
The three dots appeared again.
Yeah, you do.
I didn’t reply. Because… he wasn’t wrong.
Can you come back over, what are you guys doing?
I’ll be right there.
***
I stared at the screen for a moment longer and started listening to another demo, and then I heard the door open.
“Hey,” Rob said. “You okay?”
I let out a small breath. “Yeah.”
“You’re lying.”
I huffed a quiet laugh. “Yeah.”
He stepped closer, and sat next to me on the couch.
“So do you hate that I’m right?” he asked with a smile.
I held his gaze for a second before shaking my head. “…No, babe. It’s not that.”
A small smile tugged at his lips, and I immediately looked away, shaking my head again. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
I didn’t answer, because I didn’t have one that didn’t make it worse.
“Like I believe in you?” he said more quietly.
I let out a breath and looked at my screen. “That’s exactly the problem. Now it feels like you all want me to do this, and suddenly I don’t really have a choice anymore, like it’s just going to spiral and turn into something bigger than what I want, and I don’t know… it’s scary. It wasn’t supposed to be this.”
He nodded and watched me. Then he leaned closer to me.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered in my ear.
It must have shown on my face how surprised I was, considering I’d been trying to make him say that since the talk show.
I shook my head slightly. “No, you’re not.”
He didn’t argue. He just pressed a soft kiss to my cheek.
“I am. But for what it’s worth, I didn’t plan for this to happen, not really, not like this.”
I rolled my eyes.
“But here we are. The song’s here now and I just know people are going to react to it in the most amazing way, because how could they not? Now, I trust you to make the right decision. Because, you just know that if it were for the band, you wouldn’t hesitate for a second.”
I smiled in agreement.
“Don’t you find this a tiny bit exciting? Like it is with U-N-I when we’re about to drop something we know is good?”
“Maybe a little bit,” I admitted with a smile. “But it’s more scary than exciting.”
“Babe, don’t be scared, life’s great, and it’s full of twists and turns for us, and this one, it seems pretty incredible, too incredible to let go.”
I smiled and met his eyes before saying,
“Thank you.”
His eyes widened, just as surprised as I’d been by his apology.
“That came a lot sooner that I thought,” he said with a small laugh.
“Well, it’s the final word of the song, so, I guess you’re the first person I should be thanking, if I’m being honest.”
He smiled wholeheartedly and placed his hand on the side of my face, pressing a soft, loving kiss to my lips.
“God, I love you,” he whispered.
“Oh babe, I love you too.”
I kissed him again, harder this time, more passionately, and we lost ourselves in the moment.
We smiled at each other as we broke the kiss and his eyes drifted down to the computer still on my lap.
“So, what are we working on next?”
I opened the folder and showed him.
“Let’s see if we agree.”
I scrolled through the few recordings I’d done, and he pointed to the one titled ‘Je t’haine’.
I smiled. “Good pick.”
***
So that’s what we did. We recorded the song again. I sang in a lower register, softer than Monsieur Madame. Rob really believed in this one because it was a poetic song about us. About love, our love. About living it openly, for everyone to see. But also about the risk of losing everything if it fell apart. About the fear that it might not last forever. And about not caring about the people who hated us for it.
I shared it on the WhatsApp group chat and they loved it, I could feel their excitement building.
Sophie, from the French marketing team, was the first one to give me her opinion.
“I wasn’t sure what to think after the first listen,” she wrote, “but then I really paid attention to the lyrics and by the second listen, I was obsessed again. The lyrics and the melody are stunning, the arrangement is beautiful, the piano, the strings, the subtle drums, they really pull everything together.”
“Yeah, it’s different, I guess,” I wrote.
“Different, but just as captivating. And your voice is so melodic on this one. Really, it’s simple, understated, and so beautiful at the same time. I can’t stop listening to it on repeat.”
“Oh my god, it’s very strong, again, I love this,” Alex added a while later. “The lower register works really well for you. I agree with Sophie, the lyrics hit differently on the second listen. And the production really elevates it too. This definitely has potential. I wasn’t expecting this, but it really works. I can see a thread emerging with this second song.”
“Yes, this one’s mostly piano and strings again,” Sophie wrote. “Are you sticking with that, or do you have something with more guitar coming?”
I laughed to myself. “Yeah, I thought the same. A bit of guitar would be good.”
“Can’t wait!”
After that, I ended up recording three more songs, and suddenly there were five. With each new song, I could feel the EP taking shape, like a thread running through them, giving the whole thing a sense of identity. All of them had different vibes, different moods. And then there was Les étoiles, which stood apart from everything else. It still felt like it didn’t belong with the others, but at the same time… it kind of had to.
I guess that’s what gave the EP its color. Each song was different, but together, it all made sense.
Even if I still didn’t fully know what I was going to do with it.
I knew there was no pressure from the label to release it, I wouldn’t have to promote it or perform the songs live, so I decided to just take things as they came.
Honestly, it felt good because for once, nothing felt forced. I had no deadlines, no expectations, it was just about the music.
Rob couldn’t help himself. Given that I’d written the last three songs in just under three weeks, he kept telling me I shouldn’t wait and should just release them, rip the bandage off.
One day, while we were working on the album, he asked me to play and sing the beginning of ‘Monsieur, Madame’ on the piano.
I agreed and he filmed it.
Then, the first thirty seconds of the song were on his Instagram, with a caption that read:
so… remember that song I wasn’t supposed to play on tv? You know, the embarrassing one! Yeah, oops, I did it again. Clearly, I didn’t learn my lesson. Just the start this time… Don’t panic, he won’t murder me. But this one might actually kill you. It killed me.
French-speaking fans, do your thing if you want more, je vous préviens, vous allez prendre une claque, vous êtes pas prêts!
***
I opened Instagram.
The video had already blown up and I read some comments.
WHAT DO YOU MEAN JUST THE START
vous allez prendre une claque?? bah vas-y on attend !
on est prêts hein. balance la suite. Allez, dis-nous tout!
the way his voice comes in??? i’m not okay
ON EST LÀ et on va le convaincre, laisse faire les français, on veut savoir maintenant ce qu’il a à nous dire !
He says in the lyrics he’s going to tell us everything, I’ve been waiting for this moment!
I’m sorry, but he says, ‘Today, I tell you everything!” he said today, today, drop it!
ROBBIE PLEASE! WE ARE NOT STRONG ENOUGH FOR THIS
you did NOT learn your lesson and we’re grateful for it
on lâche rien jusqu’à ce qu’il sorte le son
UNE CLAQUE??? MAN MAIS ON VEUT LA SUITE MAINTENANT, TOUT DE SUITE
he said “don’t panic” but I’m sorry, I am absolutely panicking
I swear there’s something different about him, like something in him is just waiting to come out.
THIS IS A CRIME. DROP THE FULL VERSION RIGHT NOW
this is your fault and we love you for it!
une claque?? mais on DEMANDE QUE ÇA
I need the full version like I need air
You just said “just the start” like that’s normal, it’s too short, I’m crying, please
Moi je suis déjà en train de spammer ses commentaires t’inquiètes
WHY DOES IT HURT ALREADY?
Putain, ce mec a tellement de talent de fou, il vit la musique
If this is just the start, I’m actually scared of what the full song is going to do to me
he won’t murder you but we might if you don’t drop it
Robbie is our strongest soldier, honestly, every time Mark sings, we have him to thank.
30 seconds in and it already feels perfect. This is why we love him.
I just know this song is going to ruin me, please I don’t want to wait
si on n’a pas la suite je fais une révolution, j’espère qu’on va pas devoir attendre trop longtemps
his voice feels… safe? I don’t know how to explain it
oh, mais nous on est déjà prêts depuis longtemps, c’est lui qui l’était pas
Mark, we know you’re seeing this. drop it.
**
I stopped scrolling when I read the last comment, a smile on my face.
“…Fuck,” I said out loud. “Well… I guess that’s happening.”
They were ready, but I wasn’t sure I was.
***
Rob dropped the version we’d recorded for the EP three days later, uploading it to the band’s official YouTube channel before sharing it on Instagram, telling them the text had been written a few years back, around the same time as Fix You.
Part of me was excited. The other part just felt… incredibly exposed. It was a lot to take in.
Again, I found myself reading through the comments, on Instagram or on Youtube, some in French, some in English and even other languages.
***
I’m not okay after this. Like, genuinely, who hurt him? How can you not cry listening to this, honestly?
I had to sit in silence after it ended, So many emotions, love, truth, hope, and sadness.
I’m so happy to discover him like this, and not just behind a guitar. It’s about time, he’s not just a guitarist and a songwriter, he’s a complete artist. And I hope we’ll get to see him blossom even more within the band now. I know Robbie would love it, he’s said so himself many times.
Same, so happy he’s really opening up completely. We knew he was more than a musician and a song writer, all the songs he’s written for U-N-I are incredible, but this hits differently
i had chills the entire time, chills chills chills, it’s impossible not to listen to it again and again. I’m so glad he finally told us everything through his music
Who gave him the right to hurt us like this? The pain of an entire generation. Thank you, Mark, and thank you, Robbie, for pushing him, supporting him through it all, and for loving him.
This is art, real art. An incredible song. Beautiful. I love that singing in French allows him to express himself freely like this, who knew he could sing like this.
EXTRAORDINARY track. I had to replay it immediately, I haven’t stopped since, it’s like a drug, I can’t stop. the vulnerability, I’m speechless It’s been a long time since a modern song moved me this much, the way it builds and then breaks you…! I’m stunned.
I just want to give him a hug … that's what we all need, someone to hug us so tight that all of our broken pieces stick back together. Please, Robbie, give him a million hugs for us.
I wasn’t ready for this at all, so beautiful, nothing like this out there, this is going to stay with me for a long time. Every time I listen to it, I want to cry. I see myself so much in certain parts of this song.
A true gem, this song comes from the depths of your soul and is meant to be shared, because it resonates with so many of us. Thank you, Mark, and as many have said, thank you to Rob for helping you share it with us.
This just broke something in me, this is the first time I’ve felt understood like this through a song, I love that he’s singing in French, I didn’t know he mastered French to that extent, incredible.
I don’t think I’ll ever listen to this casually, I’ve never been moved this deeply before. I’m actually shaking, this is on another level, what intensity, what range. He gives you chills, so moving, he made me cry. “Mr/Mme” will become an anthem.
And there you have it, the birth of an artist. I don’t even understand French, but I can hear the pain in his voice. That’s a true artist, turning pain into beauty.
The only flaw of this song is that it ends. Like Freddie Mercury once said about Bohemian Rhapsody, if you think six minutes is too long… I feel sorry for your wife!!
Guilty, I thought, “WTF, six minutes? That’s a lot for a song.” I was completely wrong. Every second of it was precious, full of emotions that everyone has felt at some point in their life.
Yeah, the song is 6 minutes but to me it feels like 2 minutes. This is just a work of art. I can’t stop listening to this bc the lyrics hit so close to home. You can feel his pain. I can’t even describe how good this is. This song is a masterpiece.
Sometimes I feel like great artists have something broken in their soul to be able to see the world in such a unique way, and that’s what makes their work so special. It’s heartbreaking, but at the same time… it’s so beautiful.
I’m honestly speechless. You can feel every bit of his vulnerability. I love artists like him who turn their sensitivity into strength and make their music hit this hard.
I feel like I just read someone’s diary, I can’t even explain how this makes me feel, I’m emotionally destroyed, thank you, so much, merci!
So raw and controlled at the same time. Thank you for this wonderful song. I hope you’ll find the inspiration to share more emotions just as powerful with us, on your own, with the band, in English or in French … whatever it is, we’ll love it.
Mark, you once said that your favourite word in the French language was honesty. The journalist asked you if you’re good at lying, and you said no. This song is striking proof of that, of a rare sincerity.
Damn, it feels good to hear a song with real lyrics! I’m tired of songs where they repeat the same line 50 times. I hope he’ll perform it live one day, it must hit you right in the gut live, bravo and respect, both for the lyrics and the singing.
I fucking love it when he sings “My ambition is huge, hard to satisfy.” It says everything. That’s exactly why U-N-I is so successful, because he’s never satisfied. He’s always chasing more, more, more… and somehow, it never quite feels like enough. Like something deeper is missing in his life, something he’s lost…. And my god, it really echoes “Fix you” I can see why it was written around the same time. I mean, when Robbie sings “tears stream down your face, when you lose something you cannot replace”, I’m crying.
Exactly, when he sings “My happiness has a bitter taste… I can’t help it, something’s missing… always more, that’s how I am,” and then “Monsieur, Madame, j’avoue je suis malheureux, et pourtant je vis de mon rêve de morveux…” morveux doesn’t just mean “kid,” it’s closer to “brat.” And then he goes into something like “and yet, every day, I get to make love to someone sincere who never hurts me” (excuse my translation), only to fall right back into that feeling of giving without receiving, of feeling unworthy. And you get the sense that, despite loving Robbie deeply, it doesn’t replace what’s missing when he says “without a family, it’s tough,” so you start wondering if that’s how his family saw him and his ambition, and that just makes it even more heartbreaking.
Yes, and when you go back to the beginning of the song, you understand why he says he wants to disappear, to escape, why he feels so alone. I mean when he sings, ‘J'me sens seul, putain, Personne me tient la main. Personne avec qui partager cette gloire, putain, J'marche seul sur un chemin qui semble sans lendemain. J'accélère, mais personne ne m'attend à la fin’ I was like, really? Nobody to share the fame with? What about his friends, his bandmates? But what he really wants is to share it with his family, because parents are supposed to hold your hand and guide you, and obviously, that’s not the case.
Yes, because the lines “D’abord, c’est le bonheur quand tu donnes à ton cœur, à bouffer un amour qui calme tes douleurs, tu oublies ton malheur, mais au fond ce n’est qu’un leurre, dans cette génération d’cons remplie de menteurs” show that his love with Robbie is real, it helps, it soothes him, but it’s not enough. It can’t replace something deeper, something more foundational, like the love of your parents. And you just know he’s talking about them, because earlier in the song he mentions them with “Né de parents sans fortune,” and it doesn’t even feel like it’s about money, but more about what he didn’t receive growing up, like love, stability, or hope. And he even starts with that, the first lines, “moi je veux rester petit, un gamin pour la vie,” it feels like that part of him, that child, never got what he needed and he grew up “in hell” “in a crazy world” in which “man is a brute” in which it’s only “quarrels and disputes” that he wants to leave, like he says.
Your analysis is so right. Because even when he asks God to help him and talks about suicide, it doesn’t feel like he actually wants to do it. It feels more like a quiet question, like wondering if anyone would notice if he disappeared. That part really resonates with me. And then there’s this idea of wanting to create a world just for himself, a place where he could finally be free, with no chains, no hate, where he could have wings, a whole new universe where tears and sorrow don’t even exist anymore, they’d be like a fucking urban legend. I honestly can’t get over those lyrics, they’re just… perfect.
You guys are making me listen to it again and again just to understand the lyrics better. What really stood out to me is the swearing, so raw, like “je les emmerde, ces cons, car je suis seul et je galère !” and “un con pessimiste”, “cette génération remplie de cons et de menteurs.” I don’t even think the “pessimistic fool” is really him… it feels more like something coming from his family, especially when he says “I’m alone and I’m struggling.” He feels alone. Like these are voices he’s internalized, telling him he’s complaining for nothing, that he’s overdoing it, exaggerating everything… And then there’s his mother, who fails to guide him, to help him see things more clearly, when he says “maman, je n’y vois plus clair, j’ai besoin qu’on m’éclaire.”
“If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his own language, that goes to his heart.” Nelson Mandela. That’s why we’ve been asking for him to sing more often for so long, and wow, hearing him sing in French really gives us a true sense of who he is. It shows another side of him, one that feels much more vulnerable than what he usually lets us see when he’s playing guitar, or even singing in English. Bravo, it’s beautiful, young man!
When I first listened to the song, I cried. then I had to translate some of the lyrics, like most of you did, and I cried even more. This song touches me in ways that I cannot explain. I don't just hear it, I feel it. This is a masterpiece indeed, Mark, and for that I say, merci!
I say merci as well because to me, the end is the most powerful. I translated it like this “But you should know that on stage, thanks to you, I feel far away from this crazy world. ‘cause I smile when I write, I laugh when I mess up, and I feel alive when I play. And for all of that, I say thank you.”
****
I scrolled for a long time. Rob was next to me, quiet, doing the same.
“That’s insane,” I said eventually.
“Good insane or bad insane?” he asked.
I shook my head, still staring at the screen, deeply touched by everything people were saying.
“Well… good insane. They totally get the lyrics.”
“Of course they do. They know you better than you think.”
I kept reading for a while longer translations, guesses, people piecing it together line by line. Some of them were translating it for the others, trying to explain every line, every word… and somehow, they were getting it right.
And in that moment, I realized… this wasn’t small anymore.
It wasn’t demos on a laptop or texts in a display book I wasn’t sure I’d ever share. It was out there now. And people had taken it and made it theirs. All these comments felt like pieces of people, scattered everywhere, somehow finding their way into something incredibly personal I’d written alone in a room.
“Okay,” I said to myself.
Rob raised an eyebrow. “Okay?”
I looked at him, realizing I had said that out loud. I debated it in my head for two seconds as I gazed into his eyes.
“Let’s release it.”
His expression shifted, something between surprise and pride.
“Yeah?” he asked.
I nodded. “Yeah.”
It still scared me. That hadn’t changed. But it didn’t feel like something I had to run from anymore. If anything, … it felt like something I was ready to step into.
Rob smiled, that same look I couldn’t stand and couldn’t look away from.
“You’re sure?” he asked.
I let out a small breath, glancing back at my phone, at the flood of words that still didn’t feel entirely real.
“No,” I said honestly.
That made him smile more.
“But I want to do it anyway.”
He nodded slowly, like that was the only answer that mattered.
“Okay,” he said. “Then we don’t overthink it.”
I huffed a quiet laugh. “I’m definitely going to overthink it.”
“Yeah,” he admitted. “But I’ll pretend you’re not.”
I didn’t wait to change my mind. I opened the WhatsApp group chat and sent a single message.
You can release it.
Alex responded immediately, “is this a green light or are we hallucinating?”
Rob had been added to the chat, he started typing immediately.
“Wait,” he said out loud at the same time, glancing at me with that look again. “Let me tease them with bits of it for a few days,” he typed.
“A little teasing wouldn’t hurt,” Alex wrote.
“Stop doing this to me,” I added with a crying emoji.
I was still reading the comments, especially one that made me react.
“I’m gonna have to sing this live one day, aren’t I?” I said, already feeling a hint of anxiety.
Rob grinned and shifted on top of me. He took my phone from my hand and tossed it away.
“Maybe,” he whispered. “Come on, sing to me for now, the chorus, you know...”
“Again?” I asked flirtatiously.
“Come on, that song just turns me on, I swear,” he moaned, brushing my lips.
I smiled and began to sing ‘Je t’haine’ softly, letting a hint of seduction slip into my voice, just enough to tease him and he kissed my jawline and neck gently as I did.
Alors
Aimons-nous sans aucune mise en scène
Laissons-nous valser sans masque au bal
Et désirons-nous sans la moindre gêne
Laissons-les dire que cette romance tournera mal
Laissons-les parler dans le dos, cracher même
L'important, c'est d'savoir qu'elle en vaut la peine
Cette romance qu’ils nous obligent à mettre en scène
En plein jour, aimons-nous, même s'ils nous crient
Je t’haine,” I murmured as his tongue slipped inside my mouth and his hands under my T-shirt, teasing my skin. It suddenly made me feel like a teenager again. The same feeling of being safe with him, loved, wanted, seen, protected, like we were hiding from everything whenever we were together like this. From my father, and how loud and dangerous things used to get. From how my mother never really looked at me, but still demanded perfection from me.
“Wait,” he said suddenly with a naughty smile, pulling back just enough to reach for my phone again.
“Je t’haine” started playing, and I couldn’t help but laugh softly as he leaned back in, his lips finding my neck again.
“You know,” he said slowly. “Soon, I’ll be able to say, ‘Hey, Alexa … can you play Mark Em….”
I froze and he saw it instantly.
“No, no, no, no, no…” he rushed, pulling back. “I didn’t say it. I take it back.”
“Oh my god,” I said, half laughing, half panicking. “I didn’t even think of that.”
“Babe, don’t freak out… please, don’t freak out.”
“But it’s so weird.”
“It’s no different than saying, ‘Hey Alexa, can you play, I don’t know, Yellow by U-N-I.”
“No … but it is different.”
“Okay … okay,” he said softly, his lips brushing along my jaw again. “Don’t think about anything else but this right now.”
I exhaled slowly.
“Do you want me to go buy you bread?”
I laughed, and he did too. It was my comfort food, but we never bought it because otherwise, I’d eat an entire baguette every day.
And maybe I just needed bread.
Rob kissed my lips again and I smiled to myself, because, in the end, no matter how overwhelming things got, we always found our way back to something small, something real, something that made everything else feel a little less heavy.
I pulled him down and flipped him onto his back, not breaking the kiss and we started making love, ‘Je t’haine’ playing on repeat the whole time.
NOTES
So, maybe you do, maybe you don’t, but if you want to listen to the songs that inspired this, they exist, they are by Loïc Nottet, a Belgian singer. If you’re curious to listen to ‘Monsieur, Madame’, here’s a live version with English subtitles. It's a great song, well in my opinion.
The only thing I’d change in the lyrics, and that I’ve already changed in the fans comments, is the beginning of the last verse, I’d make Mark sing about actually having someone he can make love to and about wanting a family and not wanting a soulmate (that he already has.) But that’s it. And maybe the line about getting shit-faced but it could just have been inspired by Rob, so it’s actually really good.
And in the song Je t’haine, if you listen to it or read the lyrics, I would change this line only:
Pour l'aimer vraiment faudra prendre le risque
Comme celui d'être triste si l'autre quitte la piste
I would make Mark sing:
Pour l'aimer vraiment faudra prendre le risque
Comme celui de tout perdre si l'autre quitte la piste
In english :
To truly love him, you’ll have to take the risk,
The risk of losing it all if the other steps off the floor
here’s the translation of the passage in the chapter that Mark sings to Rob:
So,
Let’s love each other without any pretense,
Let ourselves sway, unmasked, at the ball,
And desire each other without the slightest shame.
Let them say this romance will fall apart,
Let them talk behind our backs, even spit their venom
What matters is knowing it’s worth it,
This romance they force us to put on display.
In broad daylight, let’s love each other, even if they shout at us: I hate you
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