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After the death of Edith Piaf in October 1963, Charles Dumont experienced a journey through the desert. Pushed by the lyricist Sophie Makhno, secretary of Barbara and Anne Sylvestre, the composer will little by little put himself forward to interpret his own compositions. On October 13, 1976, on the occasion of the release of his sixth studio album, entitled She ; A song, the artist receives a team from Île-de-France Regional News at his home. It is on the piano that the singer-composer looks back on his journey. He first tells how he launched himself on stage, pushed by the success of his records. “ I had always promised myself that if one day I had support, something solid, I would sing on stage. Because ultimately, the only truth for a singer is the stage. »
Singing the melancholy of love
During this meeting at his home, Charles Dumont evokes the woman who was his muse for only three years, but who marked the turning point in his career: Édith Piaf. He explains that there is no question of him covering the songs composed for her during his singing tour, with one exception, My Goda song sublimated by the little Piaf, but written before he met her. “ It became My God by her, but the music was earlier », he explains before performing it on the piano. And to continue to justify this choice: « My Godit is a prayer and everyone has the right to pray. Everyone has the right to say: “Leave me the person I love, leave them to me””.
He hums: “ Leave it to me, a little longer, to me…” Then he explains that in his eyes, it is not a sad song, but rather melancholy, and develops the difference between these two notions : “People confuse melancholy with sadness. I advise them to open a dictionary and see the difference between melancholy and sadness. I think that indeed, the experience of life, of love, of things in general leaves you with a little melancholy. Melancholy is a state that cannot be explained. You can be very happy and melancholic, while sadness is always justified by the external events that surround you and which mean that you cannot do anything other than be sad in certain circumstances.
And to deny himself being a sad artist: “ I'm not a sad singer, and I don't want to be a sad singer. I am a melancholic singere because I believe that love, which is my main song element, is always a little melancholic. »
This sequence with the star singer ends with a piano rendition of his current hit, the song Elle.
