“I don’t hold grudges, my data systematically erases the most painful things”

The author, composer and performer, Lara Fabian is the exceptional guest of Le Monde d’Élodie Suigo from July 15 to 19, 2024. Five days, five songs to better understand this artist who has become a must on the international scene.

Lara Fabian is the special guest of Le Monde d’Élodie all this week. Five days to talk about her 30-year career with its ups and downs. The one that the French saw arrive from Quebec in the 1990s with a powerful voice that touches the heart, has become, over the course of her 16 albums, an artist who counts in both French-speaking and English-speaking countries. It is without filter that she opens up by evoking bits of her history, memories of life around her songs that have become cult: I love you , Adagio, I Will Love Again, I still believe in, Immortal, You are my other, Humana or The difference. She returns on his meeting with the boss, Johnny Hallyday, who gave her confidence, on her vocation to transmit what she learned to others and then above all she underlines the importance of a feeling which warms closed hearts: empathy.

For three decades, Lara Fabian has never ceased to offer insight into life, with its joys and sorrows, pages that turn and adventures that begin, to her precious audience. As a prelude to the release of a 17th album planned for the end of 2024, she offered us last January the single Your pain, written and composed with Slimane and confirms that a tour is coming.

franceinfo: You have been a judge on iconic shows such as “The Voice” on TF1 and “Star Academy” in Canada. You seem to enjoy transmitting.

Lara Fabian : Absolutely. I discovered this love for transmission when, for the first time, Canada called me to come and do “The Voice” Quebecois. There, I discovered something so natural in me, to be able to understand that what I have accumulated as a tool over time can be of service to someone and I can feel useful through other things than just the songs I write or the concerts I do. I will really immerse myself in this educational dimension with enormous joy and gratitude.

“Knowing that I could pass on knowledge was one of the greatest discoveries of the last ten years.”

Lara Fabian

to franceinfo

I would like us to talk aboutA Hail Marywe arrive at the album 9. With this album, a page has been turned. I have the impression that you decided to take your life back in hand at that moment.

In any case, I decide to really tell it. From a more serene space perhaps, and also more cheerful. I write it with Jean-Félix Lalanne, who is an incredible talent, and we will not put any barriers. This is the memory I have of this moment when we compose this album, is that we really want to tell stories in which we do not censor ourselves on anything, and even less on the fact of sometimes doing things a little more convoluted, a little more complex. It will particularly amuse us.

Today, you are a woman who counts on the international music scene. Do you have a feminist side?

I am one of those women who deeply love other women, who recognize their great place, their great power. If that is what it means to be a feminist, then I certainly am. But I am not one of those women who choose another banner and who imprison themselves in other criteria. I also deeply love men. I believe that we can be extremely complementary. If I chose to love men, it is more because they are men that I have loved and not because I have not met women who could have made sense in my life. It happened to me to really fall for someone who was not of the opposite sex, but I did not find the resonance that would have made me someone who would go there. On the other hand, I have always tried to protect women in one way or another.

“Sisterhood is very relative, even in feminism.”

Lara Fabian

to franceinfo

You have also been able to position yourself in favor of marriage for all. The song: “Two he, two she” became an anthem for all the people who felt rejected. Was it a big commitment for you to do it?

It was a commitment that was for me the logical continuation of The difference, unfortunately… I would have really liked not to have to insist in this way again. But it is an endless debate because it touches in an atavistic way on a fear, a fundamental fear which is in fact the fear of dying. We never finish continuing to exist, to give birth, but, despite everything, this atavistic fear constantly becomes and still an incessant violence towards the community. Sometimes, it can really make me angry. And since anger is the refusal of reality, I try to welcome reality by making it move, by shaking it up a little. But sometimes, it really has the gift of annoying me deeply.

Your state of mind, we find it in the song By love. Everything is said, it is a summary of everything you have already said before. What does this song represent for you?

It was a love letter to someone who left my life too violently, too quickly, without me being able to take the measure perhaps of the harm I did. But I am sure of one thing, it is that he did not take the measure of the harm he did to himself by leaving before having been able to really fight and debate it. I believe that words are essential in life. Taking the time to sit down and listen to what the other has to say to us. And I understood, over time, that it is impossible to connect with someone if we do not first give them the empathy they need. If someone needs empathy, you can try everything you want, whatever the argument, as long as you have not given them empathy, you will not be able to correct the situation. And this song was a bit like that. It was giving enough love, therefore enough empathy to hope that there could be a discussion later. But that was not possible.

Are you resentful or do you have a good memory?

Zero. So not only am I not resentful, but my data systematically erases the most painful things because otherwise I can’t start again, I can’t rebuild myself. That’s what made it so that even when I had one knee on the ground, or even both, I managed to get back up.