Listen to this when
Le Métèque
Wearing the outsider label with quiet grace 🌊
Who it's for
Moustaki took a slur for Mediterranean immigrants and sang it as a soft, self-accepting portrait of a wandering outsider.
Marked as an outsider→Gently self-possessed
Feelings it meets
What it is
"Le Métèque" is a song written by Georges Moustaki and released in 1969 as a single and on his album Georges Moustaki; it was his first breakthrough hit as a performer. "Métèque" is a pejorative French term for immigrants of Mediterranean or North African origin, and in the song the narrator takes on the words xenophobes use for foreigners and reclaims them.
Where to find it
All major streaming services.
Before you start
Age: All ages
One ever feels his twoness,—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings;W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, Chapter 1
