"It was 1996, the year that the world seemed to be becoming more acutely aware of the AIDS virus, which publicity had threatened would become an epidemic!

It was starting to seem more and more real a part of our sheltered lives, as increasingly it came closer...... now, people we actually knew personally, some friends, were dying of it.

And that's when Aznavour, who had, years before, written the first popular song which was overtly about a character who was gay, 'What Makes A Man A Man?', decided to 'update' it - to write another song, about what it must be like to live as a gay man now, in the light of - or perhaps that should be in the shadow of - this Love = Death equation. "

From Love To Death
(Dee Shipman / Charles Aznavour)

So from loving to death
It is only a pace
And love crosses, and crosses out
Every embrace
Who decrees how and why
All our dreams are no more
And our love is a lie
And our loving against the law?

The more sufferings rise
The more the devil smiles
And God has closed his eyes
To ,man and all his trials

The more sufferings rise
The more the devil's mirth
Now God has closed his eyes
Ignoring hell on Earth

So destiny and death
Have made their solemn vow
And only pain is left
And love and life devoured

From love to death
The fatal friend
Soul-burning breath
Guilt-bitter end
From love to death.

And the heart icy mute
And the body afraid
And the blood is polluted
A deadlier shade
All illusions are shelved
No more rights to reserve
We must protect ourselves
Endangered beasts we must preserve!

Adventures of a night
Become a lethal game
We glimpse, with failing sight
Tomorrows all in flame
Pain raging uncontrolled
Runs lovers out of time
All courage turning cold
Now love's become a crime

From love to death
The fatal friend
Soul-burning breath
Guilt-bitter end
From love to death

Love should have been our door
To future Promised Lands
And science was to cure us
And to hold our hands
Without a backward glance
By both we are betrayed
No hope, no second chance
The bitter price must be paid

My love, my dearest love
Don't leave me here alone!
Death's circling above
I'm scared of the unknown!
All dreams are gone for good
Youth's futile for a man
Who's fate is in his blood.
I am condemned, and damned!

From love to death
The fatal friend
Soul-burning breath
Guilt-bitter end
From love to death.