Stromae tells an autobiographical story of a child whose father left home and wants to find him. Paul Van Haver’s own father worked away from home and was killed in the Rwandan Genocide when he was a child. The child holds on to his mother’s saying, that anything can be found if you know how to look for it. It gives him hope that he might see his dad again.

Two lines ago he said “And why are you all looking at me like an ape?” He’s referring back to this line by saying this. Note that the narrator has already commented, “I can’t have a baby”, it may mean that he is actually sterile. If he (as the ape he’s being treated as) had a child (the baby ape), it would be wonderful. Linked to the central topic, this may be overt longing that – if his formidable lost love had stayed with him, he would have given her an amazing child.

Could also be a sidelong reference to Michael Jackson and his chimp Bubbles. Stromae is the heir apparent of Jackson, who was beloved but also unloved, a perpetual outsider until his death.

• He said that if a mother is a “pain” i.e. too protective or simply annoying it’s so as to not see her daughter or son become a parent so soon.
• Or just, “she’s afraid of becoming a granny” would mean that she is afraid of growing old. And for good reason, as in the next line:

  If daddy is cheating on mommy, it’s ‘cause she’s getting old

The fear of the “mommy” is therefore rooted in this.

Stromae is going to lecture this poor kid about relationships.

In his drunken state, it takes a while for him to differentiate between a boy and a girl. “Petite” is also frequently used by men hitting up women at bars, similar to the English word “girl”.