However, from the first sentences of Every day, Suzannean epistolary story from the author, composer and performer, who has nine albums to her credit, emotion overwhelmed us. “I almost stopped everything […] The lack of visibility of my last album (Modern life, 2023, Editor’s note) destabilized me”.
Interview with La Grande Sophie for “Cet instant”
The consoling
Fans of La Grande Sophie remember “Suzanne”, the 10th and last song of The ghost’s place, released in 2012. Suzanne entered the artist’s life in 2010 after she had been faced with a painful ordeal, as she confides, page 175. Suzanne, “but comforting”.
gullIn life, there are times when it is important to put into words what we are experiencing.
Sophie Huriaux, real name (Thionville, 1969) – determined woman, who followed her childhood dreams and thought that nothing could bring her down – therefore feels shaken when her album does not have the expected success. She summons Suzanne again, her confidante, to whom she addresses, this time, a number of letters – of a few words or several pages. “In life, there are moments when it is important to put into words what we are experiencing”explains La Grande Sophie who has never consulted a psychologist and has always wanted, like a good self-taught person, to find solutions for herself. Why this name Suzanne? “Because I found it sweet. At the time, it looked old. By that I meant that I was speaking to a mature woman.” Every day, Suzanne operates a sort of traveling shot from one era (the end of the 20th century) to another (the beginning of the 21st), seen through the prism of a woman and musician whose status and profession will experience significant upheavals, while society is being transformed by a revolution that is not only technological but also feminist. “Reflecting on my journey helped restore my confidence.”
Interview with La Grande Sophie for “Our stories”
gullI sometimes felt like I was being shameless. For me, modest is already immodest.
In these letters, La Grande Sophie reveals herself as she had probably never done before in her songs – where the metaphors allowed her to be more elliptical. “It’s a correspondence, it was a special exercise. I sometimes had the impression of being immodest. For me, the modest is already immodest.” Her childhood memories, her first café terraces in Marseille, her move to Paris, the Studio des Variétés, stage fright, the words she likes (or not), her quirky side, her time at the Brussels studio ICP, the professional meetings (Sylvie Vartan, Françoise Hardy, Lee Hazlewood, Régine, etc.), the tour bus, her first Olympia, her guitar cover of “Dis, quand-tu rés-tu?” by Barbara, her Victoire de la Musique for best album in 2013: La Grande Sophie wanted to tell as many things as possible, while not taking a chronological route. “I wanted to give an order to these letters, but in the same way that you give a tracklisting to your album.”
-gullIf I address the theme of age, it is because, very early on, I was made to understand that I was too old.
“Too old”
The sharp look she has on the directors of record companies, on the image which takes precedence over sound, on Tik Tok, on the world which is becoming dematerialized, on age,… is delectable. “If I address the theme of age, it’s because, very early on, I was made to understand that I was too old. Already at 28! What can I say, now, in my fifties? Whereas I feel very good about this decade, some did not fail to make me understand that I was no longer young.” The Great Sophie reassures us: “Everything is fine. I am full of desires.” The latest one? Make Every day, Suzanne a musical reading which she entrusted the staging to her former manager, Johanna Boyé. “I am very happy with my outfits which will compete with the Peau d’Âne dresses”La Grande Sophie laughs.
Here is one who has an unstoppable evocative power that she summons in interviews as well as in this book. Thus, when she speaks of the nylon turtlenecks from which neither her brother nor she escaped, addressing Suzanne as much as her readers, La Grande Sophie supports it with a “you know the ones worn by Les Frères Jacques while singing ‘The jam is dripping’”.
Personal memories imbued with universality: they are therefore aimed as much at the audience of the mischievous singer as at the younger generation. A precious testimony.
⇒ Every day, Suzanne | Epistolary story | The Great Sophie | Phébus, 239pp., €21, digital €15
EXTRACT
“This afternoon, I buried Purple, the bass drum from my debut, in a corner of the garden, just behind the apricot tree. It was rinsed and took up too much space. I carefully wrapped it in plastic in thinking that one day either I would be by her side, or I would go looking for her. I looked after her carefully (…) The world is becoming dematerialized, so am I.”
