What Makes a Man (Comme ils disent / English Version 1) Songtext
von Charles Aznavour

My mum and I, we live alone
A great apartment is our home
In a Fairhome Towers
I have to keep me company
Two cats, a dog, a parakeet
Some plants and flowers

I help my mother with the chores
I wash, she dries, I do the floors
We work together
I shop and cook and sow a bit
Though mum does too, I must admit
I do it better

At night I work in a strange bar
Impersonating every star
I′m quite deceiving
The customers come in with doubt
And wonder what I'm all about
But leave believing


I do a very special show
Where I am nude from head to toe
After stripteasing
Each night the men look so surprised
I change my sex before their eyes
Tell me if you can
What makes a man a man?

Around three o′clock or so I meet
With friends to have a bite to eat
And conversation
We talk and empty out our hearts
On every subject from the arts
To liberation

We love to pull apart someone
And spread some gossip just for fun
Or start a rumor
We let our hair down, so to speak
And mock ourselves with tongue-in-cheek
And inside humor

So many times we have to pay
For having fun and being gay
It's not amusing
There's always those who spoil our games
By finding fault and calling names
Always accusing


They draw attention to themselves
At the expense of someone else
It′s so confusing
Yet they make fun of how I talk
And imitate the way I walk
Tell me if you can
What makes a man a man?

My masquerade comes to an end
When I go home to bed again
Alone and friendless
I close my eyes and think of him
And fantasize what might have been
My dreams are endless

We love each other but it seems
The love lives only in my dreams
It′s so one sided
But in this life, I must confess
The search for love and happiness
Is unrequited

I ask myself what I have got
And what I am and what I'm not
What have I given?
The answers come from those who make
The rules that some of us must break
Just to keep living

I know my life is not a crime
I′m just a victim of my time
I stand defenseless
Nobody has the right to be
The judge of what is right for me
Tell me if you can
What make a man a man?