What is the song about?
The singer asks someone a series of questions: "As-tu déjà… ?". He talks about life's big experiences: traveling far away, getting lost, falling in love, making a real promise, facing one's fears. He also answers for himself. He has traveled, made choices, found his own voice, and overcome his fears. The message: dare to live, open your heart, and step out of your comfort zone.
Useful words and expressions
- perdre son chemin: to no longer know where one is going (literally or figuratively)
- croiser le regard de quelqu'un: to look into each other's eyes for a moment
- croire au hasard: to think that things happen by chance
- toucher les étoiles: an image for "experiencing something extraordinary"
- dévorer: to eat greedily; here, to enjoy moments very intensely
- faire de son mieux: to do everything one can
- trouver sa propre voix: to find one's personal way of expressing oneself
- faire une promesse: to promise something
- la tendresse: gentleness, affection
- faire le grand plongeon: to take the plunge, to take a big risk
- l'inconnu: what one does not know yet
- affronter ses peurs: to face what scares us
- le vainqueur: the one who wins
Grammar
- Questions with inversion: As-tu déjà voyagé ? The verb goes before the subject, with a hyphen. This is a more formal register than Tu as déjà voyagé ? or Est-ce que tu as déjà voyagé ?, which mean the same thing.
- The passé composé with "déjà": déjà is placed between the auxiliary and the participle: tu as déjà gagné, j'ai déjà vu. To answer: Oui, je l'ai (déjà) fait, Non, pas encore or Non, je ne l'ai jamais fait.
- Être or avoir: aller takes the auxiliary être (j'y suis allé), while most other verbs take avoir (j'ai fait, j'ai trouvé, j'ai survécu).
- The pronoun "y": J'y suis allé = I went there (je suis allé là-bas).
- Essayer de + infinitive: As-tu déjà essayé d'ouvrir ton cœur ?
- Reflexive verb after "sans": sans t'effrayer. The pronoun matches the grammatical person: sans m'effrayer, sans t'effrayer, sans nous effrayer.
- Il a fallu: passé composé of the impersonal verb falloir (il faut).
- The pronoun "en": j'en suis le vainqueur = I am the winner of that (of my fears).
Watch out for poetic license in the song
- Des endroits que je n'aurais jamais crus: this sentence is forced to rhyme with vu. In standard French, one would rather say des endroits que je n'aurais jamais cru voir. The comma after j'ai déjà vu does not belong there either.
- As-tu déjà essayé ? / D'ouvrir ton cœur…: in the song, the question is split in two. In writing, it is a single sentence: As-tu déjà essayé d'ouvrir ton cœur sans t'effrayer ?
- Sortir de sa zone: shortened form. The full expression is sortir de sa zone de confort.
- Oui, je l'ai fait, ou pas encore: the sentence contradicts itself on purpose. It is poetic and means "sometimes yes, sometimes not yet". In a real conversation, you choose one of the two answers.