“I don’t think we need to explain everything in creation”

The author, composer, performer and musician, Calogero, is the exceptional guest of Le Monde d’Élodie Suigo from August 26 to 30, 2024. Five days, five songs to get to know this artist better, one of the most loved and adored of the French music scene. Last September, he released his ninth album “AMOUR” and he will resume his AMOUR Tour in mid-November from Dijon.

Calogero is the special guest of Le Monde d’Élodie from August 26 to 30, 2024. The opportunity to look back on five highlights of his life with five songs from his repertoire. The author, composer, performer and musician has been on stage and in our playlists for over 37 years. Passionate about music since his youngest age, it was at the age of 16, in 1987, that he formed the group des Charts with his brother and a friend. 12 years later, he launched a solo career with his album Among the othersgiving up his jobs as a plumber and apprentice butcher.

With this solo career, he has definitely become Calogero, an essential artist of French song, with his little pop and rock touches. An essential melodist, many artists have called on him like Florent Pagny and Zazie.

franceinfo: The theme of love is very present in your creativity and I have the impression that the need to go on stage is more and more marked?

Calogero: It’s true, it’s like a love story. When there’s a long story like that with the audience, when I set foot on stage, I feel the story. It’s palpable in the room. Even before I’ve played the first note of music, I feel that a story of friendship, of love is happening. And that’s an immense opportunity in the life of a singer.

The pandemic has caused a lot of difficulties for many people. You also released the charity song, We act as if. I feel like it also helped put the church back in the center of the village. Was that the case for you?

It was especially very distressing. The medical explanations… Because that’s what we expected every evening on the news. Knowing that the medical profession was lost, that’s my worst memory. And finally, this song came out right away. It’s one of my friends, Manu, who tells me: “But you know, the caregivers have very little time to eat, they don’t even have meals anymore. Maybe there’s something to do?“Immediately this song came out. It’s a small drop in the ocean, but it was a way of making myself useful, of making ourselves useful with Bruno Guglielmi who wrote the text ofWe act as if.

I would like us to talk about this new album, LOVE that shows a new face of the man you are, but above all a voice. It’s hard to believe that it’s you. She changed that voice.

She is evolving and I hope she will get better and better. I like to sing. The fact of always singing, maybe that keeps her going and it is a way for me to get across the messages that I can’t get across to you like now, in an interview.

I would like you to talk about the songs on this album. There are Given, The departure hall with Marie Poulain. It’s a song that was immediate for everyone, with also this feeling that it was necessary to de-dramatize, to free oneself from guilt. Isn’t that precisely what you wanted to convey?

Yes, that’s a bit like it. Everyone has their own romantic journey, no one should judge them.

“I love unusual love stories and no one can take that away from me.”

The song Married ends the album. There are a lot of things inside this song. A first name that is very symbolic, this anagram, “AIMER” which responds to the title of the album LOVE and with your youngest who opens this album with her voice, it’s quite strong.

So actually, I asked Paul École for a song called Married. He answered me: “But you are crazy“. I said no. There were plenty. So that’s why at the beginning of the song, it says: “I heard you in other tunes“And where I’m really happy is that in the comments on the album, it’s one of the songs that people like the most and that they really made their own because it’s about their grandmother or their sister.

You yourself speak of your grandmother.

There are lots of coded messages. I also like mystery and I don’t think you have to explain everything in creation. What I can tell you is that my grandmother, Marie, was born in 1902. When I was born, all the Calogeros in France were called Charlie to sound French. And my mother, when my father was going to declare me at the town hall, told him: “Come on, let’s be modern and put Charlie on the ID card.“. And there, my grandmother Marie, widow of Calogero, my grandfather, said: “No, you call him after your father“. And it’s thanks to her that at the end of the Charts, when everyone called me Charlie, I took back my real first name on my identity card. Afterwards I met this young 26-year-old singer called Marie Poulain, who is also very charismatic.

“It’s strange, ‘Marie’ is a song that pays homage to all the Maries I’ve met in my life. A name that marks my life as a child and my life as a man.”

So to finish, precisely, since you are talking to us about your perspective as a child and your life as a man. Is the child you were proud of the man he has become?

I don’t know if he’s proud, but sometimes I see him in the mirror and I look at him and I say: “You see, there was no need to be afraid.”

Calogero is back on the roads of France with his AMOUR Tour for numerous stages including November 14 in Dijon, November 15 in Reims, November 23 in Limoges, December 30 in Caen, December 7 in Toulon and December 20 and 21 in Lille.