“The Tender Image of Happiness” by Yves Duteil, a beautiful family photo

This winter break, we explore love – all forms of love. On this New Year’s Eve, our journey through the verb to love visits a happy family – which is rare in song.

It is a fixed image, an image seen from a child’s perspective, and remembered by an adult. It is a moving and precious image.

The tender image of happiness, by Yves Duteil, is one of these family portraits of archetypal purity, of which there are ultimately quite few in French song. Lise and Roland, his sister and brother in the song, are also his sister and brother in his real life.

In this episode of These party songsyou hear excerpts from:

Yves Duteil, The Tender Image of Happiness, 1979

Georges Brassens, Belleville-Ménilmontant, 1979

Juliette Gréco, The Dupanard Family, 1957

Michel Fugain, The Fugain Family, 1966

Guy Béart, Émile doesn’t care, 1986

Orelsan, Family defeat, 2017

Charles Trenet, The Mad Complaint, 1951

Daniel Darc, The Mad Complaint, 2013

Renaud, The Mad Complaint, 2022

Yves Duteil, The Tender Image of Happiness, 1979

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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.