Alain Souchon has been one of the major figures of French song since the 70s. His career is notably marked by his collaboration, his very strong friendship with Laurent Voulzy since 1974. We welcome, with pleasure, Alain Souchon at franceinfo to pass the week together and come back to five of his essential titles as an opportunity to reread his career. He released a best of a few weeks ago: (New) collection, including three CDs with 57 very well-known titles or a little less and today, we are talking about the song Sentimental crowd.
franceinfo: Over the course of your career, you have become a cult. Does it affect you?
Alain Souchon: Yves Simon said that “songs are an emotional calendar“, that is, a song you hear that was sung 22 years ago, you say to yourself:”Ah yes, it’s on this song that I met so-and-so“. So, it has an effect, it is an emotional calendar.
Have you always had music in your skin?
Oh no ! I am an amateur, in music. Amateur in a good way. I like and at the same time I am not very professional. I do not know how to read distributions for example.
Do you miss it?
Yes, I really miss knowing how to read a score and play it on the piano. I find it extraordinary, people who take a score of Chopin, then while reading, their fingers go on the keyboard. It makes me want!
You are a singer, author, composer, but also an actor. You will make your first film appearance alongside Catherine Deneuve and Serge Gainsbourg for Claude Berri in I love you (1980). There was also All fire all flames by Jean-Paul Rappeneau (1981) and Murderous summer by Jean Becker in 1983. I have the impression that a career in the seventh art is not something that has convinced you.
No, I didn’t find myself very strong, but it was nice to meet Pierre Granier-Deferre or Jacques Doillon and then to make a film with Jane Birkin in the mountains (Comedy! 1987). The three of us were isolated, with the technicians, we saw no one for two months. It was interesting, all that, but at the same time, I saw Michel Piccoli who was my absolute idol and then the others, and I told myself that I will never be up to them so, I stopped.
“When I made films, it was really a little enchanting parenthesis.”
Alain Souchonto franceinfo
Did you doubt when it was offered to you?
I was like a midinette! I was asked : “Don’t want to go to the movies?“, I said: Oh yes! But afterwards it’s a job. And then, I had my job of songwriter which takes a lot of time and which takes the lead and I did not want to mix Both. It was better for me to write my songs in my room and sing them, than to be an actor.
In 1985, the album was released, It is as you want. It is a radical change, with also the famous Jim’s Ballad, a song that tells the story of Jimmy, who finds himself lost, cries, gets drunk and tries to kill himself. Did you want to remind people of the importance of maintaining self-confidence?
It’s funny because this song, we had a lot of trouble making it. Laurent was constantly changing the music. He would arrive in the morning and say to me: “You know i have changed“So I retorted: So we have to change the words!”Oh yes!“It lasted maybe for 15 days! He was changing all the time, it was never right, my words were fucked up and then, after a while, it took shape. And then there is this story of road-movie, that of this boy who leaves, who is unhappy, who gets drunk while driving his car and who flies. It was above all the despair of love which can lead to madness, love that go goofy.
In 1988, the album was released Ultra modern Solitude with the title: When I’m knocked out
It was a moment when it kind of rocked in my head, but I don’t know how to explain it. It was a good time, a change.
You have always liked changes, pushing the boundaries a bit.
A little bit, but we’re all a bit the same. We are trying to go a little further. Poets do that, they go a long way until you barely understand what they’re saying. In the song, it’s not the same thing because everyone has to understand fairly quickly. It’s an exercise in style that is also nice, that of suggesting, that it be a little elegant and at the same time very understandable.
When we talk about Alain Souchon, we immediately think of Sentimental crowd.
My songs are photos. I look at the world and then I describe. And when you look at the madness of buying, of believing that happiness lies in having lots of things like nice cars and well, if your fiancée goes away you can still have three Ferraris, you’re screwed. .
“There are primordial things and all the tinsel quickly vanishes like falling dust. ‘Sentimental crowd’ says that a bit.”
Alain Souchonto franceinfo
What is your essential then?
Not to die right away and then that my wife doesn’t go away with Laurent Voulzy, that my grandchildren get a good education, things like that.
Alain Souchon is currently on tour, he will for example be on January 3, 2022 in Montbéliard, on 4 Nantes. Also in January 2022, he will pass through Marseille, Dijon, Amnéville, Paris, etc …