Alain Souchon has been one of the major figures of French song since the 1970s. His career is notably marked by his collaboration and his very strong friendship with Laurent Voulzy. Elodie’s world returns this week on five of its essential titles. Today, I’m ten years old, released in 1974.
franceinfo: Nothing in your childhood foreshadowed that you were going to have such a journey. Distracted pupil, dreamer, you had calamitous results, but there was poetry.
Alain Souchon: My parents were, even if I had a chaotic childhood, cultivated, kind people, for whom the stars were not footballers, but George Sand, Colette, Jean Cocteau. I could see that it was my environment and I discovered poetry.
As a child, poetry intoxicated me because of the rhythm of the words.
Alain Souchonto franceinfo
Your mother sent you to a French high school in England. There, you go to work in a pub and I have the impression that there is going to be a huge click. We will call you the French Man, you will acquire a taste for popular songs!
Yes. I went there. It was the fashion of Ray Charles and then after, the arrival of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones. There was a frivolity that made me want, that I found nice, but I was still very attached to the traditional French song that I liked a lot, which came from poetry, that of Léo Ferré, Georges Brassens, Jacques Brel, Guy Béart, Barbara, all these people who fascinated me when I was 12, 13 years old.
It made me feel like a song, anyway, was something that told a story. Our meeting with Laurent Voulzy was rather pleasant technically and professionally. Rather, he started with music, was carried away by gimmicks, harmonic suites, me, it was more with words. This guy is quite wonderful and nice!
It is easy to understand why this matched you, it was obvious, you are very complementary.
Yes very. It’s a very funny situation because I owe him everything and he says the same thing about me and we often say to each other: “Basically, this meeting is crazy!“
Laurent Voulzy and I need each other.
Alain Souchonto franceinfo
You will return to France after England and live on odd jobs. This is when you will try your luck in small Parisian venues. Strangled by financial difficulties, you wrote the song in 1973 Love 1830, intended for Frédéric François. And it’s Bob Socquet who tells you: “You don’t have to give it, you have to sing it yourself“.
Yes that’s it. I was blown away because he told me: “I like your voice“, whereas I was rather self-conscious about my voice and I told myself that I could never be a singer.”We’re going to do a 45 rpm. You are going to record with a large orchestra, with violins and all that and then, we are going to do the golden rose of Antibes. And then we’ll see“. And so, I did that, I was carried by the thing. Bob Socquet was very smart, very funny, very nice, and we went to do this song contest and we had a prize. I was happy. I said to myself: it’s funny, I sing and then my voice passes. Shortly after, he said to Laurent and me: ” Guys at work, make an album“.
The album is called I’m ten years old and the song of the same title is a huge hit. You will really become the leading figure in the French song press. How did you experience this immediate notoriety?
It’s quite exhilarating, quite funny and at the same time, we don’t believe it. What was incredible, it is compared to the meeting with Laurent, that is to say that I, all alone, I floundered with my songs, not well and all that, him the same on his side. And the fact that we do things together that are successful: I’m ten years old, Can. He there is rumba in the air then Rockollection globally, we say to ourselves: “It’s crazy to have met!“
What does the song represent: I’m ten years old ?
The fact that I was looking for melodies, kinds of nursery rhymes and gave it a rhythm that dazzled me. I said to myself: yes, that’s it! And then, we adjust the words to this rhythm which is great, like the rappers do now, that is to say that the words are rhythm too. This is what I liked by reading poetry, is that it is music.
(New collection by Alain Souchon including three CDs with 57 tracks. He will be on tour in 2022.