Author, composer, performer, Pascal Obispo takes up his repertoire on the Obispo All Access platform launched last January and released on Friday October 29 a new physical album entitled France, with songs originally composed for France Gall in 1997.
franceinfo: Obispo All Access is a real laboratory of creation, of escape too. Is that how we can define it?
Yes, escape and inevitably, escape rhymes with freedom, freedom to act, freedom to create. It is absolutely fantastic. I’m fine, as Celine Dion would say.
Today there is an album coming out called France. It symbolizes France Gall to whom you at the time presented songs at the request of its producer.
In 1997, I was working on Florent’s album. He already took the song from me Know how to love, and I’m also working on Johnny’s album at the same time. And Luigi Calabrese, owner of a label at Sony, asks me to make an album for France Gall, quite simply.
I was already a little busy, but as I was also very invested in my new job as a composer, I said to myself why not, let’s try. Even though I knew that France Gall had decided to stop music, I started to compose songs. So I called my comrades and we tried to be connected with what could have been a new album from France Gall, with the themes that she liked, in particular His reason of being which is ultimately a theme around humanitarianism.
I arrived at France, we had dinner. And then, after dinner, I was invited to play on Michel Berger’s piano, a beautiful white piano, and I was with my back to the audience which was made up of the label’s boss, France Gall and Raphaël, the son of Michel and France. And I sang His reason of being. I sang To sing, then another song. Then she approached the piano and she said this sentence to me which became the gimmick of the presentation of this album: “Yes, it’s Michel, but it’s not Michel.” It ended like this. I never saw her again and I ended up with twelve songs, with the climax His reason of being, which has become, thanks to France Gall, the anthem of Sidaction.
And then there was, you said it, To sing, with Florent Pagny. Having said that, what is strong about this album is that we really discover arrangements that are completely different. We have the impression of discovering new songs.
Yes, because in fact each artist has an identity. So obviously, for His reason of being, I left it a little bit, but finally I had removed the balance so particular that I had worked for France.
Yes, we finally rediscover songs. There, I redid everything, like what I wanted to offer to France. And it was while working on the Obispo All Access application that I found the original models. And I thought it’s funny, we should have fun doing all those songs again, why don’t we release a physical album. I think he was the one who was the most unifying and who perhaps had the most beautiful story, since it’s another story of France.
I have the impression that with this platform you have revealed yourself more to yourself.
What is not necessary is the frustration, it is the prison, it is the fact of giving ourselves as an artist of limits. We should no longer call ourselves artists in the world we live in. It’s terrible since we are locked in formats and also in style. You are obligated to stay in the style for which you have been known and appreciated etc. We don’t really like to change. The multi-faceted does not really work.
So the idea of making this platform allows me to be able to wean myself, free myself as an artist, songwriter. I do all the ideas I want to do, jazz, flamenco, classical music. We’re gonna carry my coffin with all these songs. It will be fun to see that I was indeed rich in curiosities. I have always been very curious about all possible styles of music.
A word about To whom to say that we are alone. This song is also very symbolic.
It is true that we have thought about the texts and To whom to say that we are alone, it was a pop-up song. It was complicated. She had lost her man. Raphael his dad. And then she had just lost the little one. So, it’s a bit of a song of consolation that France could have sung for her son and for all the people who lose loved ones. It is not a song that I had sung that night, but it is true that this song was it.
To conclude, are you calm Pascal Obispo today?
Totally. I became a craftsman again, in fact. And I believe that as the son of a peasant, grandson of winegrowers and peasants, I think that’s what suits me best, this slightly wild side, with, at times, when it is necessary, to put a suit to come to town.