The Illustrated Stories / Les illustrés
Voice : Suno
🎵 Listen to the song
With The Illustrated Stories, Jean-Pierre Martinez pays tribute to the power of popular fiction and to its founding role in shaping the imagination. Inspired by the illustrated magazines that marked several generations of children and teenagers in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, the song evokes those adventure comics sold at newsstands, where heroes crossed African jungles, deserts or frozen lands, offering an escape into worlds far larger than everyday life.
Beyond nostalgia, the text defends an essential idea: fiction is not an escape from reality, but a way of inhabiting it differently. Illustrated magazines, popular novels and great works of literature all answer the same universal need to tell stories, explore other lives and imagine other possibilities. By naturally bringing together childhood adventures and classic authors, the song reminds us that all forms of storytelling help shape our outlook and sensitivity.
The final section marks a symbolic passage from reader to author. After long receiving the dreams of others, the narrator decides in turn to write, to pass something on and to send his own stories out to unknown readers. This evolution makes The Illustrated Stories a song about artistic vocation as much as about reading. It celebrates the power of books, comics and stories to transform an existence by opening doors to imagination, creation and freedom.
Through this sensitive evocation of childhood, literature and writing, the song invites each of us to preserve our capacity for wonder and never to give up on the power of stories, whatever their form or origin.
The full lyrics of the song The Illustrated Stories are presented here together with the audio recording.
This song can accompany Jean-Pierre Martinez’s play Special Dedication and his autofiction Writing One’s Life.
https://jeanpierremartinez.net/en/special-dedication/
https://jeanpierremartinez.net/en/writing-ones-life/
Lyrics of the song
Les parents racontent aux enfants
Des histoires pour les endormir
Des princesses, des princes charmants
Des sorcières, des dragons, des vampires
Petit, ou grand, on a tous envie
D'oublier un instant notre vie
Pour s'évader dans un autre univers
Vivre un destin extraordinaire
En sortant de l'école
Lorsque j'avais dix ans
Après toute une journée
À m'ennuyer sur un banc
Je retrouvais mes illustrés
Mes histoires préférées
Des aventures bon marché
Achetées au kiosque du quartier
La couverture en papier glacé
Le reste en noir et blanc
Pour quelques pièces de monnaie
Dans la jungle en Afrique
Ou le grand Nord canadien
Des paysages magnifiques
Des, héros n'ayant peur de rien
Qui me semblaient plus vrais
Que mon pauvre quotidien
J'ouvrais ces illustrés
Comme on ouvre une porte
Une issue de secours
Dans un monde médiocre
Et dans mon lit le soir
Pour trouver le sommeil
Je rêvais de rejoindre
Ces pays des merveilles
Raconte-moi une histoire
Je te promets d'y croire
Rêvons la tous les deux
Si elle nous rend heureux
Ne nous résignons pas
À la vie comme elle va
Si notre histoire est belle
Et qu'ensemble on y croit
Elle deviendra réelle
Pour nous deux, en tout cas
Adolescent, j'ai découvert
La grande littérature
Molière, Zola, Flaubert
Sans vraiment de rupture
Romans populaires
Ou quintessence de la culture
Pour un lecteur ordinaire
La même envie d'un air plus pur
Qui n'a pas connu
L'angoisse de ces dimanches soirs
La profondeur du désespoir
Quand on sait que lundi
Notre vie reprendra, toujours au ralenti
Sans projet, sans futur
Quand on rêve d'aventure
Raconte-moi une histoire
Je te promets d'y croire
Rêvons la tous les deux
Si elle nous rend heureux
Ne nous résignons pas
À la vie comme elle va
Si notre histoire est belle
Et qu'ensemble on y croit
Elle deviendra réelle
Pour nous deux, en tout cas
La vie qu'on nous impose
Ou celle dont nous rêvons
Laquelle est la plus vraie
Rêve ou réalité
Un jour je cesserai de lire
Pour commencer à écrire
Je lancerai tous mes rêves
Dans une bouteille à la mer
J'attendrai que tu la trouves
Et que tu m'écrives à ton tour
Nous rêverons nos vies et à notre réveil
Nous partirons ensemble au pays des merveilles
Parents tell their children
Stories to help them fall asleep
Of princesses, charming princes
Witches, dragons and vampires
Young or old, we all long
To forget our lives for a moment
To escape into another world
And live an extraordinary fate
Leaving school
When I was ten
After a whole day
Spent bored on a bench
I would find my illustrated magazines again
My favourite stories
Cheap adventures
Bought at the neighbourhood newsstand
The glossy paper cover
The rest in black and white
For just a few coins
In the jungle in Africa
Or the great Canadian North
Magnificent landscapes
Fearless heroes
Who seemed more real to me
Than my poor everyday life
I opened those illustrated magazines
As one opens a door
An emergency exit
From a mediocre world
And in my bed at night
To fall asleep
I dreamed of reaching
Those wonderlands
Tell me a story
I promise I’ll believe it
Let’s dream it together
If it makes us happy
Let us not resign ourselves
To life as it is
If our story is beautiful
And together we believe in it
It will become real
For both of us, at least
As a teenager, I discovered
Great literature
Molière, Zola, Flaubert
Without any real break
Popular novels
Or the quintessence of culture
For an ordinary reader
The same longing for purer air
Who has never known
The anguish of Sunday evenings
The depth of despair
When you know that on Monday
Your life will start again, still in slow motion
With no project, no future
When all you dream of is adventure
Tell me a story
I promise I’ll believe it
Let’s dream it together
If it makes us happy
Let us not resign ourselves
To life as it is
If our story is beautiful
And together we believe in it
It will become real
For both of us, at least
The life imposed on us
Or the one we dream of
Which one is truer
Dream or reality
One day I will stop reading
And begin to write
I will cast all my dreams
Into a bottle thrown into the sea
I will wait for you to find it
And for you to write back to me
We will dream our lives and when we awake
We will leave together for wonderland
You can listen to this song freely on this website. For any other use, please contact Jean-Pierre Martinez via the website’s contact form.