I am the final point of a novel that begins
Let us not forget everything above level zero
I sustain my romance intact between my eyes
Then, denying nothing, I set out once again
I am the final point of a novel that begins
No need to distinguish the horizon from the dance
And within my burnous my house survives
I am the final point of a novel that begins
Of my two Saharas I compose my song
I sustain my romance intact between my eyes
I am in the truth the pupil and the lesson

Often I recall having been a shepherd ...
Then in my eyes there's that long-suffering look
Of a fellah who watches in his unbreakable hands
The history of a country where the orange tree will be born
Often I recall having been a shepherd
I have sliced the galette
I have parted the figs
My daughter
I have married well
It has no equal
To the gun
To the task
Than my eldest son
My wife was the finest in the valley.
Among us the word fatherland has a taste of anger
My hand has caressed the heart of palm trees
The handle of my ax opens an epic
And I have seen my grandfather Mokrani
Finger his beads watching eagles pass
Among us the word fatherland possesses a taste of legend
Daddy !
Why have you deprived me
Of fleshly music
see:
Your son
Learning to speak in another tangue
Words that I have known
Since I was a shepherd lad
Ah my God The night so much night in my eyes
Mummy calls herself Ya Ma while I say Mother
I have mislaid my burnous my gun my pen
And I bear a first name falser than my deeds
Ah the night my God but what's the good of whistling
Fear You're afraid Fear You're afraid Fear You're afraid
Since a man stalks you like some frightful mirror
Your school friends and the streets the jokes
But since I tell you I'm a Frenchman
just look at my clothes my accent my house
I who turn a race into a profession
Saying Tunisian when I mean ''tradesman''
I who think of a Jew as some wretched homegrown
soldier? Come on then, my sister wears no veil
And in the Lycee didn't take all the prizes for french?
Ah my God the night so much night in my eyes