” South West “. We didn’t expect you so soon with a new record…
Francoise Hardy. But me even less. I didn’t plan to follow up so quickly with a new album. Was my record company afraid that I would fail? (laughs). We joke about that a lot. When I tell the person I’m working with about doing a show that I’m so emotional my heart might explode, she humorously responds that it would be great for the album’s sales.
An album of duets was for me the opportunity to meet people that I would never have had the opportunity to otherwise. Among other things, singing with Julio Iglesias! It surprises some people, but I am so sensitive to his voice and to some of his recordings that being associated with him for a song was really like making a fantasy come true. I have always been a midinette and I claim it!
“I had adopted the habit of submitting to all forms of authority. It takes a long time to get rid of such a reflex”
What view do you have more generally on new French song?
Most often, the melody serves the text. I belong to a generation with an opposite mode of operation, where the text must imperatively serve the melody. This is due, I believe, to the influence of Anglo-Saxon and American pop music. In new French song, the two best for me are Benjamin Biolay (who already has great, timeless, universal songs to his credit) and Camille. I also sometimes regularly hear things that I find magnificent, like this song by Pauline Croze, “T’es beau”. There’s also M, who is great in every way. In fact, I don’t like anything French.
Bénabar, for example, is very friendly, he does good things, but he’s a bit outspoken for my tastes.
“People often ask me if the Petit Conservatoire de Mireille _ where I was at 17 years old _ wasn’t the Star Ac’ of the time. No way. »
And about the “Star Academy”?
It is a reflection of an era and a society where standardization is the rule, and where everything is pulled down to reach as many people as possible. Having been friends with Armande Altaï for a long time, I watched a little when she was a singing teacher there. And I was struck by the vulgarity that emanates from all of this. Which does not prevent artists as interesting as Olivia Ruiz or Élodie Frégé from coming from there.
But imposing the terrible conditions of direct-to-video on all these young people is almost sadism on the part of the producers and the public. They can’t give their best because they are petrified by stage fright. I don’t like to witness this kind of killing where only the least emotional come out on top. I don’t remember which magazine had made a photomontage with all the famous singers who would have been immediately rejected for the “Star Academy”: there were a bunch of them, including Alain Souchon, Serge Gainsbourg, Étienne Daho, Jane, me… (laughs).
People often ask me if the Petit Conservatoire de Mireille – where I was at 17 – was not the Star Ac’ of the time. Not at all: when Mireille took someone into her class, it was because they weren’t like everyone else. That’s what counts: an interesting artist has, by definition, a universe of his own.
Do you ever listen to your old records?
It inevitably happens to me when compilations come out. But the very first songs, I never listen to them. I don’t even have them, I think. In my eyes, my professional journey began when I went to record in England. But everything that was done before, in the early 1960s in France, gives me goosebumps of horror: it’s bad to the last degree! One of the things I was most ashamed of was having recorded “La Mer” and “Les Feuilles Mortes” for German television, with atrocious German rhythms… My record company couldn’t find anything suitable. better than releasing this on record. I was dead of shame!
When we do things we don’t approve of, it’s because we don’t have the strength to do otherwise. I was barely out of my mother’s skirts and had no sort of experience. I had lived in isolation, between my sister and my mother who was the authoritarian type, and I had gotten into the habit of submitting to any form of authority. It takes a long time to get rid of such a reflex.
As an astrologer, what do you think about the downgrading of Pluto, which astronomers no longer consider to be a planet?
It’s embarrassing to talk about these things, because many people don’t take astrology seriously. And besides, I sometimes agree with certain detractors: recently, a young woman told me that an astrologer had told her that all the planets in her birth sky were working against her!
This makes no sense, no basis, and can be traumatic. Forecasting astrology has no control over the event, but allows us to predict phases, climates, and specify the plans that will be in play. Experience shows that in this area, Pluto accounts for 75%. For astrologers, it is still a planet, even if it is a little off-center and does not travel its orbit quite in the same plane as the other planets…
“I have always voted environmentalist. »
We are in a pre-election period. Are you interested in politics?
I have always voted environmentalist. In the 1960s, I was friends with Brice Lalonde who had founded his Friends of the Earth club, and I was very concerned by all that. It is only today, when it is almost too late, that everyone is starting to be moved by what the environmentalists announced fifty years ago. Otherwise, I’m more in the center: I think there are good things on both the left and the right. I would like a government made up of personalities who are more realistic than ideologues. It’s probably utopian!
Beyond any partisan consideration, what do you think of the fact that, for the first time, a woman is in a position to be elected to the Élysée?
I remember polls, in my youth, which said that if Simone Veil ran, she would be elected. She simply never wanted supreme power. This is therefore not the first time that a woman has been praised by the French. It is true that around the world, more and more women are elected heads of state. I don’t know what to tell you, except that it seems to me that there is something very masculine about a powerful woman (laughter). Take it as a joke.
Bio Express
Born Paris in 1944. Entered the Petit Conservatoire de Mireille in 1961. “All the boys and girls”, in 1962 (2 million copies sold). Met the Beatles and the Rolling Stones in London in 1965. Joined Jacques Dutronc in 1967 (marriage in 1981). Sings “Comment te dire adieu”, by Gainsbourg, in 1968, and announces his farewell to the stage. “Message personnel”, by Michel Berger, in 1973. Sings in duet with Delon, Julio Iglesias, Souchon and others on “Parentheses”, published on November 27, 2006. Died on June 12, 2024.
