Brigitte Fontaine is from that category of humans who love to discover, to be amazed. The Ariadne's thread in this journey, both rock and magical on earth and in the air, remains poetry and what constitutes it, that is to say the words. To this atypical personality, we must also add that the objective to be achieved at all costs has always remained the same. It's about the feeling of freedom. Today, she is back with the creation in her discographic repertoire of the album Pick-up.
franceinfo: The album Pick-up is between trance, rock, garage, psyche chaâbi. It’s a nod to the return of vinyl. Is it an ode to life and love?
Brigitte Fontaine : Oh no! It's an ode to nothing at all. I don't believe in anything. Neither to love, nor to life. I don't believe in anything.
Is there nothing that makes you want to write, for example?
Oh yes! The love of words hits me like the urge to pee.
What relationship do you have with your time?
You can say that I am a poet, or you can also say, because it dates from the Middle Ages, a poet, that I accept. But what I cannot tolerate is a writer. It's absolutely ugly, ridiculous and women writers have always existed. A writer is a writer like a gazelle is a gazelle, even if it is male. That's all I'll say on this subject.
You have this always feminist side in you. How do you define yourself?
Feminist, no! Although I started way before feminism. I started devoting myself to the cause of women, if you will, well before the term feminist.
“I started writing especially for women, for honor, to help honor women who are humiliated.”
Brigitte Fontaineat franceinfo
And it's painful, like most colonized people, they are humiliated of course, and it's one of the most painful things about colonization. That's my opinion.
For 60 years, you have played with words, verses, stories, emotions. You are the unclassifiable, the indomitable. If you had to describe yourself, what would you say? Who is Brigitte Fontaine?
A poor little girl who is scared. Moreover, the cover of Pick-upthat's me when I was about two and a half years old and I said with my arms over my ears: “fear, fear, fear, fear”. Already.
You were born in Finistère. As a child, when you were very little, what did your parents pass on to you?
They gave me nothing except affection. Affection is very important.
So, what made you want to leave very quickly and start acting?
Long before, I wanted to drop out of high school, and the director of the theater company that traveled across Brittany came when I was 12 to ask my parents: “When she turns 16, can she come with us?“And it was my dream, I loved them. I waited for them for weeks and weeks. And not only did she refuse, but she didn't warn me. So I blame her for that. elsewhere, she also blamed herself a lot. My whole life would have been changed and I would not have suffered all this misery and these numerous abortions, etc.
“As a little girl, I dreamed of theater with people I loved very much and of traveling all the countries of Brittany.”
Brigitte Fontaineat franceinfo
Do words help you get better? We have the feeling that you have always been a fighter.
Yes. Finally they allow me to be happy. When I finish something, if it's good for me, I'm happy. I'm still quite nice, I think. I am a fighter, a warrior and when I was little, I would have wanted to be called a tomboy. But no one said it because I was really already a little female, so I wasn't happy.
You say you're depressed, but you still sing about desire in this album. There is something very carnal at times.
I don't really know what love is, it's a bit like believing. Love and faith are very first cousins. I don't have faith and maybe I don't have love either. I don't know.
Can we say of this record that it is a way of continuing to lead a revolt?
Yes, we can say that.
