You expanded the canon of French music towards places it had never ventured before. Your melancholic and desperate songs on passion and love filled the hearts of people all across the world. I grew up listening to your music long before I understood why you sang in a language that was not yours in blood, the same as mine. You gave hope to a people long forgotten and abandoned by the world, a people who have just now begun to rise up and enact change within their fledgling country. You were an Armenian born and raised in France, a child of immigrants during the second World War, and you blossomed through art, through music and film, and made us feel joy, sorrow, and love.

Charles Aznavour, your real name was Shahnour Vaghinag Aznavourian, but I understand the need for the change. The renown French singer Edith Piaf told you to change your nose, your Armenian nose that people made fun of so much. You did, but she then took it back and said she had like the old one more. She put you in the spotlight, and you surpassed her. That lovely voice, the steady and milky vibrato could melt women's ears upon hearing it. The truth is that Armenia looked up to you, and she roared with pride when you received your Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. They recognised you, finally accepted you as one of their own, a star. But you were always a star in our hearts. Rest peacefully, dearest Charles, for we will one day catch up to you.