9:45 p.m., July 2, 2022
She is a singer-songwriter. She excels in each of these areas. Songs about you and us (Equateurs, 2021), which has just been released in paperback, brings together his own texts of songs from 1962 (All the boys and girls) to 2018 (Nobody else). Françoise Hardy comments with acuity on some of her writings; talks about Michel Berger, Jean-Marie Périer, Serge Gainsbourg, Jacques Dutronc; finds its melancholic themes on the search for love. Beyond his immense talents, why is such a singular and divisive personality so much loved by the French? Françoise Hardy does not cheat. Her beauty, her humility, her discretion. She is never pretending. Due to illness, his words have become scarce. Françoise Hardy engages here with her sincerity and her lifelong lucidity.
Songs about you and us is a collection of your songs written from 1962 to 2018. They are often accompanied by your retrospective look. Does the notion of progress exist in songwriting?
Until a certain point. The texts of my very beginnings were bad because I had no personal life and my songs were only a pale copy of what I heard on English radio. Little by little my songs became better because they were inspired by a particular and painful sentimental experience.
Read also – Françoise Hardy, best female entry in the Top 50: “I dread 2022”
We meet, in this collection, the writers Sándor Márai and Marguerite Duras. Do you like some current writers?
I don’t have time to read anymore and I don’t know the current writers. When reading was still possible for me, I had preferred to re-read Edith Wharton and Henry James, my two favorite writers, as well as discover those of 19th century English romantic literature – with a few male authors and many female authors including George Eliot. For several years, too many books have come out, many of which have been praised by critics, which means that we don’t want to read any of them.
For one of your songs, I’m too much here, you explain the relief of creating something beautiful from an injury. Do you think of what your life would have been like without your gift for song?
It’s you who make me think of it. Making songs is indeed a great outlet to sublimate great suffering, but my personal life and the songs it inspired are inseparable, and I can’t imagine what my life would have been like without it. Obviously, I would never have met Jacques Dutronc, but my way of loving would no doubt have been the same, which would have caused me the same setbacks.
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Making songs is indeed a great outlet to sublimate great suffering
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How to define a successful song?
It is first of all a melody which, big or small, must have a magic with a text at its service and at its height.
Summer night, reproduced in the magazine Latitude mer, is an ironic song. Isn’t it a less known aspect of your artistic universe?
Good that Summer night either an excellent song unfortunately unknown, I did not appreciate my text which seemed to me too caricatural and not nice. I’ve done a lot of humorous songs, the ones that immediately come to mind are Where is he ?a blues of which I had made words and music, Nap to a melody by my friend Jean-Noël Chaléat, Taboo to a melody by Michel Fugain, etc.
So many beautiful things was written for your son, Thomas Dutronc. How did he receive the song?
Thomas was too upset by what was happening to me to be able to listen So many beautiful things. Jacques, on the other hand, heard this song when he left and thought it was addressed to him. He had called me to tell me that it had brought tears to his eyes and that thanks to his glasses and the smoke of his cigar, he had been able to hide his emotion from those around him.
Has your relationship to death changed with the disease?
I have long thought that death is only that of the body which belongs to the material world, but not of the spirit (of the soul) which physical death frees and which is of another essence. That doesn’t stop me from being afraid of dying. Not from death itself, but from the terrible pain of separation from my dearest loved ones and the physical suffering that dying most often entails.
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I am appalled that there are so many extremists in my country
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What is your life like today?
Since my 45 radiotherapies, the definitive absence of saliva and the lack of irrigation of the skull and the entire ENT area have made my life nightmarish. I spend at least five hours a day eating and am always at risk of nosebleeds because my nostrils are too dry and clogged despite the oil I coat them with several times a day. A recent hemorrhage has made my back throat even more parched, causing me coughing and choking attacks.
But are you happy to be alive?
For my son and my husband yes, for my friends too, but my life has become so difficult that sometimes I would like to go away in my sleep and not wake up.
How did you experience the 2022 presidential and legislative elections?
Wrong. By definition, ideologies disconnect from realities, those of the extreme right and the extreme left much more. I am appalled that there are so many extremists in my country, so many people ignorant of its economic realities and I am ashamed to be French. All European countries have raised the retirement age to 65-67 even though they do not have the highest public expenditure in the world, as in France! (It goes without saying that retirement at 65 would not apply to jobs that are too physical.)
Have you ever thought about leaving France?
I never wanted to go anywhere else. In one form or another, the nightmare is everywhere.
Jacques and Thomas Dutronc are on tour. Are you proud of their agreement?
I am proud of their great talent and what they do together delights me.
In love, can we go from passion to friendship?
In some cases no doubt. But Jacques will have been the man of my life and the feelings that we have for each other today go further than a simple friendship.
You are extremely loved by the French. Is this a source of astonishment for you?
Yes of course. It touches me. But the vast majority of French people only know a few of my songs, those that have been broadcast, while there have been lots of others as good or even better. There are also quite a number of people who have never heard of me. These things must be put into perspective.
Love is the great theme of your texts. What remains of our loves?, sings Charles Trenet. What remains of your loves?
Our wonderful Thomas… lucky to have had, to still have someone like Jacques in my life… many beautiful and good songs… many beautiful memories…
Songs about you and usFrançoise Hardy, I Read, 416 pages, 9 euros.
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