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Clara Luciani has never hidden it: she worships Françoise Hardy, for “his shyness” and its texts “magnificent”. For the singer, who has covered it many times in concert and in the studio, it is quite simply “iconic”. Clara Luciani was also one of the headliners of the creation “Personal messages, Françoise Hardy by Sage”, which was held during the last edition of the Printemps de Bourges festival.
With her, around ten artists, aged 20 to 30, have appropriated several classics and more or less confidential songs by Françoise Hardy. How can we explain that performers, not even born at the time of the release of “Comment te dire adieu”, found themselves (brilliantly) around the repertoire of the most discreet of popstars?
For her texts, first – some written by her, others by Michel Berger, Serge Gainsbourg or Alain Souchon. On Europe 1, Françoise Hardy admitted it: “The text must serve the melody, and not the other way around.” “In one minute, she can draw a tear, a gesture, admits P.R2B, among the artists present. Sometimes, I have the impression of being excessive in my texts, of saying a lot. She remains very minimalist.
These texts remain powerful and evocative, some would say, perhaps nostalgic for a time when words were the essential thing in a song. A study carried out by the University of Innsbruck, in Austria, shows that in forty years, a tendency to “simplification and repetition” in the lyrics has emerged in all musical genres.
Theodora, artist and musician from the group Astral Bakers, admits: “Today, we try to offer texts that go straight to the heart, in a more direct way. Before, there were lots of twists and turns before we got there. Françoise Hardy knew how to express the tribulations of her heart.” Also because she had the time.
“We spend less time writing songs than thinking about how to promote our project. A group starting today is also forced to be behind their phone on social networks to promote their music, rather than writing in a notebook. It’s another form of art, the art of promotion”recognizes Sage, conductor of creation.
Pub music, trendy music
If certain songs by Françoise Hardy have aged better than others (the artist has twenty-eight albums between 1962 and 2018), the fact remains that she was a pioneer with many of them, not seeking “to remain the most popular artist possible”summarizes Sage.
First there is her Anglo-Saxon approach to music, thanks to which this lover of British folk has inspired more than one English-speaking artist. Bob Dylan (who poses with – among other things – the record of All the boys and girls on the cover of his album Bringing It All Back Home), Wes Anderson (who made “Time of Love” the soundtrack for his film Moonrise Kingdom), Blur (group with which Françoise Hardy sang in a duet, “To The End (La Comédie)”), Morrissey (who covers songs by her in concert)… Many artists are present at Printemps de Bourges to perform ‘appropriate his titles to dream of the same destiny.
Above all, she is a musician “adventurous and demanding”, concedes Sage. His vast repertoire also attracted Voyou, singer and trumpeter. “She has orchestral, grandiloquent songs. When you listen, you don’t realize that certain titles are so complex.he admits.
Titles, above all, that have become so popular that they are at the same time the must-have of trendy music, the soundtrack of a water commercial or a bawdy song that children hum in the playground. Voyou remembers: “I grew up in a place where we didn’t listen to Françoise Hardy too much. I first heard it in a TV commercial. But when I arrived in Paris, many had done it their whole lives.”
No hard feelings
As a result, Françoise Hardy is also this artist who brought together many social classes: “It was a time when we listened to so-called “left” music, popular music as well as more bourgeois music in a sometimes compartmentalized way, testifies the artist recently returned with Alonehis new EP. She is one of the artists who managed to make people forget all that.” November Ultra, she remembers that it was with All the boys and girls that she understood the words of a smaller song for the first time.
Fashion icon, discreet and adored singer, Françoise Hardy was the avant-garde with abundant lyrics, most of the time accurate, often direct. As she is also herself: Françoise Hardy has recently not been kind to the generation of young singers, “not bad at all but without any vocal or musical identity” (outch), in an interview with the book All for the music. She didn’t go easy on the rappers either (“Michel Berger, Véronique Sanson, Julien Clerc, Laurent Voulzy […] unlike rappers, we will hear them until the end of time”).
Not holding a grudge, therefore, Zaho de Sagazan, Clara Ysé, Albin de la Simone and others paid a pure and divine tribute to this representative – forever? – of French song, in an atmosphere of assured succession.
