TheThe 77-year-old artist, whose life had become a “nightmare” after his treatment for hypopharyngeal cancer, responded by e-mail to France Press to discuss his work and career.
QUESTION: Your best song is your resume. Did they placate?
R It was good for me to express in words the frustrations and pains of my personal life, but it was also beautiful and evocative of the message as much as I could send on the topic of my torment.
Q Entracte Concept album is entirely directed to Jacques Dutronc to “wake him up a little” about you. Are you saying it was too romantic?
R I have always felt passionate and romance above all, and romantic music and literature is what interests me and bothers me the most.
Q: Was it like a bottle in the sea, a bottle in myrrh?
R I do not like the idea of bitterness! I was just hoping to make the other a little jealous, and I didn’t know he wasn’t listening to my songs. When I re-read the lyrics of this album, I was still amazed that I did not know him very well, I understood some of his detachments and some of his needs, which are the needs of most men.
Q How does your relationship with Jack Dutronk qualify today? [qui a refait sa vie en Corse] ?
R Nostalgia for our best years, anxiety about our state of health and endless tenderness. He was, and still is, the man of my life and our bond seems indestructible. In my album L’amour fou and in his last song, there are two songs aimed at him: A date in another life and nobody else.
Q: Today your son Thomas is permanently registered in the music scene …
R I am amazed at Thomas. At the age of 18, his future was set at High Math, because he was very good at him, but he chose a different path that nothing foretold. He developed his passion for the guitar in this late era and all the work he did to advance, among other things, the courage it took to meet the best gypsy guitarists, especially Pirelli Lagrain, was amazing (…) in addition to talent, he is a very sensitive person, Affectionate, sensitive … I’d be Jack and I were very lucky to be his parents.
O Going back to your beginnings, you are required to choose between a guitar and a transistor function as a postgraduate gift …
R His choice was crucial for the rest of my life, but it was ridiculous: the idea of playing the guitar, composing and singing never crossed my mind. Over time, I thought this choice was dictated to it from there!
Question: Lack of self-confidence, a legacy from your grandmother’s view, runs through the book. However, a compliment about your work, by Serge Ginsburg for example, could have changed the situation …
R I’ve always been referring to more talented people than me, which at least has the advantage of keeping me humble. The compliment of Serge goes straight to my heart because it concerns a particular song, Je suis de trop ici, which few people know about and which expresses the great suffering we experience when we see more directly than the song we love being drawn elsewhere.
Q Unable to terminate without checking in, how are you?
R My life has become a nightmare, but it is better not to talk much about it.
Q. Is going back to the song – on a disc – unimaginable?
R Completely. Thanks to 45 radiotherapy sessions, I became deaf in one ear, no longer saliva, my nasal passages no longer irrigated, my back throat as well, with all the breathing, bleeding and eating problems this caused continuously for two years.
Question: The debate about euthanasia did not work. What do you think?
R I am angry that France is so much more backward than Spain and Portugal, they are also countries or even more Catholic than ours. Allowing an incurable person to suffer unbearable suffering until death comes is inhuman. No one is talking to me about palliative care. If the convict has suffered more than necessary, without any hope of less suffering, and wants to shorten his suffering, the least thing is to fulfill his request. Shame on the MPs who did everything to prevent the euthanasia legalization project from moving forward!
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