While the planned presence of President Macron at a papal mass in Marseille sparks controversy, let’s return to the way in which artists (and another president) attend or do not attend Catholic churches.
At that time, we made songs to ask ourselves whether we should go to mass on Sunday. It’s in 1963, a song by Jean-Claude Annoux, a magnificent artist whose career would be shattered a few years later by a car accident. But, at the time, we didn’t really wonder if the President of the Republic was doing the right thing by going to mass. On the contrary, even.
In the first episode of These songs that make the news this weekend you hear excerpts from:
Jean-Claude Annoux, Easter Mass, 1963
General de Gaulle in Mexico, March 1964
Edith Piaf and the Companions of Song, The three Bells, 1946
General de Gaulle at Saint-Jean-de-Latran, in Rome, June 1959
Louis de Funès and Jacques Duby, Short Head, by Norbert Carbonnaux, 1956
Louis de Funes, The Gendarme and the Gendarmettes, by Jean Girault, 1982
Jacques Brel, The Bigotes, 1960
Georges Brassens, The Hanged Man’s Mass, 1976
Jacques Bertin, At evening mass in 1955, 2008
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And you can also find the podcast on this link 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.