After the death of the young Nahel in Nanterre, let’s observe how our popular music has expressed the fear of violence by the police for generations – especially through the voices of women, from the 1930s to today.
A roadside check, that’s what. We always have more or less something to blame ourselves for, as in this little road comedy by Bombes 2 Bal, a group from Toulouse with female voices. It’s not a roadside check in the suburbs, it’s not a check that will end in tragedy – but most of the facts are ordinary.
The lyrics are funny “They wave to pass, my god how lucky I am, anyway, I hadn’t done anything”. And then this sentence, “We’ll see if they’re nice”. This song from 2004 says something: in front of the traffic control, the police have to be nice, you have to be lucky – which means that you can be unlucky.
And it is perhaps an embarrassing lesson that our popular culture teaches us: police or gendarmerie control does not have a good reputation. Just about anyone has something to say about a little rough control – like Jeanne Cherhal – the gentle, poetic Jeanne Cherhal, who cannot be said to embody the fury of the uncontrolled hordes of urban disorder.
In the first episode of These songs that make the news this weekend, you hear excerpts from:
Bombs 2 Ball, The car, 2004
Jeanne Cherhal, country of love, 201
Mireille, The Three Constables 1933
Florelle, under the stars, 1936
Marie-José Neuville, We would like…we can’t, 1956
Jeanne Cherhal, country of love, 2010
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And you can also find on this link the podcast Behind our voices, with the writing and composition secrets of eight major artists of the French scene, Laurent Voulzy, Julien Clerc, Bénabar, Dominique A, Carla Bruni, Emily Loizeau, Juliette and Gaëtan Roussel.