In today’s French “X-Mas song“, the popular and often provocative French star Mylène Farmer “preemptively” wishes to all a Joyeux Noël (Merry Christmas)—but in her very own special fashion, bien sûr!
Comme d’habitude (as usual), behind their seemingly “anodin” (insignificant) and quite “inoffensif“ (innocuous) façade, most of the songs performed by the “French Madonna” carry an underlying “code“, which fans and detractors alike have for long strived to unlock… equally en vain, so far.
Her 1995 single “l’Instant X” was loin d’être une exception (far from being an exception): What seems to be a mere Pop “Christmassy” song (in the line of George Michael’s “Last Christmas”, for example!), echoing Tino Rossi’s “Petit Papa Noël“, is in fact a little more than that, and is symbolically expressed by her in the form of une équation linéaire (a linear equation): ax + b = 0
(Read her translated lyrics below)
Naturally, the solution to her equation, namely the value of the instant “x” she refers to in the song, is not openly divulged.
Nevertheless, it was lately suggested that this self-stylized latter-day “French Cassandra” has one character who seems to “throw” a somewhat suspicious indice (hint) towards the end of this 1995 video
Mylène Farmer – L’Instant X
Un remix performed by the Paris-based self-described “anti-French Touch” DJ from Paris: One-T!
Et encore un autre (And yet another one)!
Bloody lundi
Bloody Monday
Mais qu’est-ce qui 
What is it that
Nous englue la planète
Sticks us this planet
Et embrume ma comète
And mists my comet
C’est la loi des séries
It’s the law of series
Le Styx, les ennuis s’amoncellent
The Styx, problems pile up
J’ai un teint de poubelle
I’ve got a trash tan
Mais, c’est l’instant X
But, it’s the X Instant
Qu’on attend comme le messie
That wait for like the messiah
Comme l’instant magique
Like the magical instant
C’est l’équation
It’s the equation
L’ax + b qui fait tilt
The ax+b which rings a bell
Mais pour l’heure, dis
But for now, say 
Papa Noël, quand tu descendras du ciel
Santa, when you come down from the sky
Du fun, du zoprack et des ailes
Some fun, some Zoprack [verlan for Prozac!] and wings
L’an 2000 sera spirituel
The year 2000 shall be spiritual 
C’est écrit dans “ELLE”
It is written in “ELLE” magazine
Du fun pour une fin de siècle
Some fun for an end of a century
Humeur Killer 
Killer mood
C’est l’heure pour
It’s time for
Moi de prendre la pose
Me to take a break
De penser à aut’chose
To think of something else
C’est le cycle infernal
It’s the infernal cycle
Fatal, un rien devient l’Everest
Fatal, a little thing turns into Mount Everest
Mon chat qui s’défenestre
My cat that defenestrates
Ah, à quand l’instant X
Ah, when is the X instant gonna come
Qu’on attend comme le messie
Which we wait for like the messiah
Comme l’instant magique
Like the magical instant
C’est l’hécatombe, vernis qui craque
It’s a bloodbath, varnish cracking
Asphyxie, pied dans la tombe
Asphyxia, a foot in the grave
Papa Noël, quand tu descendras du ciel
Santa, when you come down from the sky
Du fun, du zoprack et des ailes
Some fun, Zoprack, and wings
L’an 2000 sera spirituel 
The Year 2000 shall be spiritual
C’est écrit dans “ELLE”
It is written in “ELLE”
Du fun pour une fin de siècle
Some fun for an end of the century
Madame X Soundtrack (1967) – “Final Hour and End Title“
Mylène Farmer = The new "Madame X-Mas"
John Singer Sargent's famous "Portrait de Madamde X", which caused quite an uproar at the Paris Salon of 1884
Mylène Farmer‘s album cover for “l’Instant X” is strikingly reminiscent of the classic movie poster of “Madame X“, the earliest adaptation of which goes back to at least 1910, and itself an allusion to the widely famous and quite controversial “fin de siècle” painting of “Portrait de Madame X” (1884)
by the renown American painter John Singer Sargent, who was then living in Paris
