“Where are the clowns? Quick, send in the clowns. Don’t bother, they’re here”: the clowns being called for, they represent the cheerfulness, the lightness that we long for in a stifling atmosphere; the clowns who are already here, they symbolize the smiling face that we want to give despite underlying worry, they are the grimace that we make upon realizing that we misunderstood certain things and that we suddenly find ourselves in a make-believe setting. Isn’t it said that clowns are sad?

I couldn't restore the song’s elliptical beauty in French while preserving the clown metaphor. “Send in the clowns” became « laisse-moi rire »/“let me laugh”, this phrase that we say when faced with something bitter, something exasperating, something that seems senseless, with which we struggle – here again, a smiling mask that covers pain and discomfort. In French, the situation remains the same: a woman - but it could just as well be a man - wanted to believe in mutual love, in a shared commitment, but it seems impossible for her not to see that the other person isn’t on the same page, doesn’t truly want the same thing; this lucidity is opposed by a strong will to resist the invasion of sadness, to not break down in front of the loved one, to remain dignified, to pretend. I imagined other romantic reproaches, other frank, painful questions addressed to a life partner, a part of reinvention that was necessary for me in order to best capture, in French, the permanent tension between lucid observation and the will to keep one’s head held high, which for me is the restless heart of this song.