Lui Ou Toi by French artist Alizée is currently inspiring two separate books I’m working on. One of them – still in the very early stages – is a sequel to His Model Student, this time following Lois’s love life. The other is a time travel romance.

It’s very hard to translate this song elegantly into English, because it’s using the pronouns lui and il (“he” and “him”) to refer to two different men. This sounds okay in French but not so great in English!

A Canadian fan provides a good attempt at explaining the meaning here:

this song (I repeat: autobiographical) shows our darling’s difficult decision between two men, very different from each other, and it seems that “IL” (the one) is more inflexible, more childish, more fun, and a “party” boy, while “LUI” (the other) is more mature, it seems, a lot older than her, more wise, more serious, and more accomplished.