One-Eared Boy
The French songwriter discusses his latest EP Orphan Train Riders and why new single Annie Anymore marks the bridge to his next creative chapter
These songs begin with a simple question: what happens to people after the world has stopped paying attention to them? With One-Eared Boy and the Orphan Train Riders, One-Eared Boy delivers a collection of songs that weave together indie rock, folk and subtle hip-hop influences into an emotionally rich exploration of displacement and resilience. Moving effortlessly between moments of quiet vulnerability and surges of raw energy, the EP explores grief, alienation and the fragile search for belonging, drawing comparisons to artists as diverse as Nick Cave, Beck and Daniel Johnston while carving out a voice entirely its own. At the heart of the record lies the little-known history of the Orphan Train Riders—the more than 250,000 children transported from New York to the American Midwest between 1853 and 1929 in the hope of finding new homes, though many instead faced exploitation and loss.
Released today, One-Eared Boy’s new single, Annie Anymore, expands on those same themes from a different perspective. Inspired by stories from the early months of the war in Ukraine, the song explores memory and compassion, examining how people who briefly become the focus of global attention can gradually fade from our collective consciousness. Recorded during the One-Eared Boy and the Orphan Train Riders sessions, the track ultimately found its own identity, serving as a bridge between the EP and the next chapter of the project. We sat down with One-Eared Boy to discuss the forgotten history that inspired the EP, the role of grief in his songwriting, the stories behind Annie Anymore, and why One-Eared Boy and the Orphan Train Riders feels like both the closing chapter of one creative journey and the beginning of another.
How did music first enter your life? Do you remember the first song, artist, or moment that made you want to create music? What was the first instrument you learned, and what drew you to it?
As far back as I can remember, there was always a lot of music in my home. My parents listened to a lot of Bowie, The Doors, The Police, the Woodstock soundtrack…
In fact, I think it was seeing Stewart Copeland on TV, and later Roger Taylor, that first made me want to play music. I started out on drums, but I quickly felt frustrated by not being able to express myself completely (melodies seemed to offer something that drum beats alone could not).
I borrowed a very cheap electric guitar from a friend, and from that day on I spent most of my time in my room, listening over and over again to Nevermind by Nirvana, Blood Sugar Sex Magik by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and a Jimi Hendrix greatest hits album until I was able to recreate those songs on my guitar.
When did you first realize that songwriting could be a way for you to express things you couldn’t otherwise say?
Quite early in my teenage years, really—as soon as I was able to awkwardly string two chords together on my guitar. I realized that with just a few simple notes, I could express things that were deeply buried inside me, things I might not even have been fully aware of myself. The emotion a new chord can awaken, bringing back a memory you didn’t even know you had buried, isn’t far from discovering fire for the first time.
The title One-Eared Boy and the Orphan Train Riders immediately suggests a character and a story. Who is the “One-Eared Boy,” and when did you first discover the history of the Orphan Train Riders?
The first time I came across the story of the Orphan Train Riders was in Valeria Luiselli’s Lost Children Archive. I was immediately struck by the sheer violence of that history—even though, for many of those children, it ultimately proved to be a lifeline. Very quickly, I imagined a choral song (The Orphan Train Riders) as if it were the ironic anthem they might have sung together on the train, much like other children would sing songs together at summer camp.
The Orphan Train story is about children being displaced, renamed, adopted, exploited, and sometimes finding new lives. What part of that history stayed with you the most?
I couldn’t stop thinking about the routine these children endured aboard those trains: thousands of miles from New York to the Midwest, with regular stops in small towns along the way. At each stop, the children—washed, dressed in their best clothes, and carefully groomed—were led into the local town hall, where, one by one, they had to perform a little routine in front of local officials and the families who had come to inspect them. Inspect is really the right word. People would examine their teeth, their muscles, their agility, making sure they were in good working order, trying to determine what use they might be on the family farm. Those who were taken in also had to sign a kind of contract, pledging to work on the farm or help with household chores in exchange for food and shelter.
It’s the image that stayed with me throughout the making of this EP, and it’s the one that still lingers with me today.
Did you approach this record as a historical narrative, or did the Orphan Train story become a metaphor for something more personal?
Both, I think. It’s a reflection on a historical event through the song The Orphan Train Riders, but it also works as a broader metaphor. Other songs on the EP, such as We Know and Ballad of Unsung Heroes, echo the stories of people whose voices have been taken away from them, whether consciously or unconsciously.
Once I made that connection, the title of the EP felt completely obvious.
You explore themes of alienation, abandonment and grief on this EP. Why did those themes feel like the right place to go creatively at this point in your life?
I wrote a great deal (songs, finished or unfinished, fragments of text) when I lost my mother a few years ago, and some of those pieces, such as The Bells, stayed with me. Grief was my creative soil for a long time before I gradually expanded into other, hardly brighter themes that resonate with me, consciously or not. Alienation, or even abandonment, are not things I have experienced directly, but there must be something in them that frightens me—it seems certain.
This EP feels like the end of a cycle, though: the cycle of grief. That’s why I was determined to close it with (Death Don’t Have No Mercy) In This Land by Rev. Gary Davis. It felt like the only possible way to bring that chapter to an end.
The record moves between darkness and light, intimacy and bursts of energy. Was that contrast something you consciously built into the songwriting and arrangements?
Not at all. I suppose the small part of me that remains optimistic still manages to make itself heard from time to time, doing its best to turn chaos into a new cosmos.
What was the first song you wrote for the EP, and did it define the direction of the rest of the record?
The first song I wrote for the EP was The Bells… eight or nine years ago. It was supposed to appear on my first EP, then on the second one, but I could never quite find the right formula for it.
On the other hand, I knew fairly early on that We Know would open the EP and (Death Don’t Have No Mercy) In This Land would close it. They’re both rather dark songs, and together they more or less dictated the direction the record would take.
“The Bells” feels like a song about confinement, memory and searching for freedom. Can you talk about the imagery and emotions behind that track?
It’s a song about grief, but more specifically about the challenge of navigating such a deeply solitary experience while surrounded by others.
“Daddy Long Legs” creates the image of a wandering figure. Where did that character come from?
This character embodies traits that are common to the vast majority of men, traits I unfortunately share myself: cowardice, the tendency to take the easy way out, and, on top of that, a habit of complaining about it all.
He’s a rather pathetic figure, constantly telling anyone who will listen, “Look how miserable I am,” without ever questioning his own role in his situation. We all know someone like that, and sometimes, if we look closely enough, we can find a version of him buried somewhere within ourselves.
Your lyrics often feel like they contain characters, landscapes and hidden histories. Do you see yourself more as a storyteller or as a songwriter?
I have endless admiration for great storytellers, but I consider myself more of a songwriter, as music and melody remain at the heart of my work. As important as lyrics and narrative are to me, they usually emerge from the music; only rarely does the process happen the other way around.
There are traces of indie rock, folk, blues and hip-hop influences in the record. How do you decide what musical language a song needs?
I don’t think I approach the aesthetic of a song in such a conscious way. Most of the time, songs, or fragments of songs, arrive in my head with their own aesthetic already attached to them, naturally shaped by the styles you mention, probably because those are the ones I listen to the most. My job is simply to translate that vision into reality as faithfully as possible.
When that isn’t the case, when all I have is a melody or an acoustic guitar-and-vocal sketch, I try to steer the arrangement toward textures or musical devices that wouldn’t be the most obvious choices at first. The idea is always to push the song’s possibilities a little further and avoid merely imitating a style or repeating something that has already been done.
Your music has been compared to artists like Nick Cave, Beck and Daniel Johnston. Which artists have shaped your approach to songwriting?
Those three, without a doubt. I’d also mention John Frusciante, Cat Power, Dave Van Ronk, Lennon / McCartney, David Berman, Mark Oliver Everett, Kurt Cobain, Nina Simone, Tom Waits, and Bob Dylan. I’m sure I’m forgetting quite a few, but those are the names that come to mind most naturally.
You often balance beauty with discomfort. Are you more interested in songs that heal, or songs that reveal something painful?
A perfect song would be one that confronts tragedy and somehow elevates it into something celestial, even comforting.
How did you approach production on this EP? Did the lyrics come first, or did the sound and atmosphere lead the writing?
For this EP, the music came first in most cases. The melodies, harmonies, or overall atmosphere of a song would usually emerge before the lyrics.
You included “(Death Don’t Have No Mercy) In This Land,” a song with deep roots in traditional blues and gospel. What made you want to bring that into this project?
First of all, the original is one of my favorite songs of all time, one of those rare songs where you remember exactly when and where you first heard it, and which permanently expands the emotional range that music is capable of giving you.
There’s something sacred about it, almost mystical: just one guitar and one voice, both extraordinary. For years, I would play it on guitar as a kind of exercise, and eventually I started developing a piano version that gradually became my own.
As I mentioned earlier, its place on the EP felt completely obvious to me. Its sepulchral atmosphere and its lyrics seemed like the perfect and definitive way to close a record in which grief and abandonment are such recurring themes.
The idea of belonging runs through the record. What does “home” mean to you now compared with when you first started making music?
I feel that my relationship with the idea of “home” has become less and less geographical over the years. I remain attached to certain places, but mostly because they are filled with people who matter deeply to me.
The people I live with are my ultimate sense of belonging. Home is wherever I’m with you, as the song says.
Do you see these songs as speaking for people who feel forgotten, or were they mainly a reflection of your own experiences?
I’d say both, although I’ve always found there’s something slightly uncomfortable about speaking on someone else’s behalf. I always try to approach that with as much care and humility as possible.
Your previous releases also explored heavy themes. How do you feel your writing has evolved since your earlier records?
In the beginning, my songs dealt almost exclusively with my own experiences. Gradually, I learned to widen that perspective and, perhaps, become a little less self-centered in my writing.
What did making this EP reveal to you about yourself?
Honestly, I’m not really sure, except that you always feel a little lighter once you’ve turned something that was weighing on your heart into a song. It doesn’t mean you’ve left it behind, far from it, but it does let you see it through a different lens. There’s something deeply powerful in that, I think.
These songs carry a strong narrative weight. How do you translate that atmosphere and emotional intensity into a live performance?
That’s exactly what I’m working on at the moment, and I have to say it doesn’t worry me at all. I believe a song’s emotional weight is embedded in the very fabric of its songwriting, so performing it live has the potential to make it even more powerful.
After exploring displacement, memory and belonging, where does One-Eared Boy go next? Is the next chapter already taking shape?
It’s still a little too early to talk about it in any detail, but I’m currently working on around ten new songs. I think the challenge is to remain true to what you’ve done before—if the work is honest, that part comes naturally—while continuing to evolve, push yourself, and stay open to new possibilities.
What can you tell us about your upcoming single, Annie Anymore?
Annie Anymore is probably the most immediate song I’ve released so far. It has a much stronger sense of urgency than anything on the EP, with raw guitars and a driving rhythm, but it’s still rooted in the same world. Lyrically, it was inspired by two stories I came across during the early months of the war in Ukraine. More than a song about war, it’s about memory and compassion, how people who briefly become the centre of our attention can slowly disappear from our collective consciousness. Giving one of them a name, Annie, was my way of refusing to let her vanish completely.
Annie Anymore was recorded during the One-Eared Boy and the Orphan Train Riders sessions but eventually took on a life of its own. What made you realize this song belonged outside the EP?
It was never a question of quality. In fact, I always liked the song. The problem was that it kept disrupting the emotional flow of the EP. One-Eared Boy and the Orphan Train Riders is a fairly introspective record, whereas Annie Anymore arrives with a completely different energy. Every time I tried to include it in the tracklist, it felt like the story suddenly changed direction. Eventually I realised it wasn’t missing from the EP, it was simply waiting for its own moment.
How does Annie Anymore fit into your artistic journey? Do you see it as an epilogue to One-Eared Boy and the Orphan Train Riders or as the beginning of a new chapter?
I think it’s somewhere in between. It’s not an epilogue because I don’t see it as an extra song or an afterthought. It belongs to the same creative period as the EP, but releasing it now allows me to show another side of the project before moving forward. In that sense, it feels more like a bridge than a conclusion. The world hasn’t changed, only the perspective has.
If someone discovered your music for the first time today, what would you want them to know about you as an artist?
I’d like them to feel as though they’ve stepped into a place where grief isn’t hidden or explained away, but simply allowed to exist until it becomes something else. I think that’s what I’m always searching for: the moment when darkness stops being frightening and starts becoming strangely beautiful.
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