“On love songs, you can’t write halfway. You have to say exactly what you feel”, Francis Cabrel confides on his hit “Je t’aimais, je t’aime et je t’aimerai”

The author, composer, lyricist, musician and singer, Francis Cabrel is the exceptional guest of Le Monde d’Élodie Suigo from July 1 to 5, 2024. Through five of his most emblematic songs, this discreet artist, with a rare voice, opens up about his almost 50-year career.

Francis Cabrel is 14 studio albums, eight live albums, five compilations and hundreds of concerts. Author, composer, lyricist and musician, he has become an artist who counts in the landscape of French song. With his claimed southern accent, Francis Cabrel has made his mark with this musicality that has seduced millions of ears. He has also been able to take us by the hand, to dress our memories with songs like: Little Marie (1977), The ink of your eyes (1980), The lady of Haute-Savoie (1980), We will have to tell them (1987), Blowpipe (1989) or again Bullfighting (1994), which are now no longer his alone, but also ours. This artisan tube maker received franceinfo at his home in Astaffort, a founding place that has always been part of him and his creations, in particular that Astaffort Meetings a link with young artists, authors, composers, performers like his daughter Aurélie, who lives there and created the Baboo Music label under which her latest single was released, A piece of Sicre .

franceinfo: To come back to the album a little Fragile released in 1980, what sometimes made you fragile?

Francis Cabrel : What makes it fragile is that with each song, we put everything back on the table. That’s what’s very hard in this job that doesn’t seem that complicated, but nervously, it’s a hell of a marathon. I would even say it’s a hurdle race. With each album, you have to jump a hurdle higher than the previous one because you put your reputation on the line, you put your: “Can I write? How will I be judged? etc.“The fragility is still there. We were talking about doubt earlier, but that’s it, the same cracks are ready to reopen.

Usually, an artist hides his cracks a little, you have never hidden that. You have always assumed that these songs were inspired by real life, by your entourage, by what touched you.

First of all, I think I don’t have much imagination, at least not enough to invent stories throughout an album. So, I write what I experience. I write for the people around me. Almost everyone around me has their song. So yes, they are stories.

“Three-quarters of what I’ve experienced can be heard in my songs. Everyone knows me in a very intimate way because, yes, I don’t hide much.”

Francis Cabrel

to franceinfo

You also feel this desire to listen to others. I think of the song Said and Mohamed which was inspired by a maid in a hotel who came from Algeria. She told you her story and this song was born almost instantly because it reminded you of this Italian family. Is that also what it means to be an artist?

Yes, it is immediate compassion. We understand so much. It is empathy, it is direct. She tells me her story. It is not me, but my parents experienced exactly that. That is why I am always extremely sensitive to the problem of immigration. These are people who suffer so much. They do not come for the pleasure of leaving very sunny countries that could be wonderful with different conditions, I do not see why we would come to get lost in the mists of France… There is always a deep reason for this uprooting.

Whenever you have been asked for particular causes that touched your sensitivity, you have said: “Yes“. In 1985, an association that fought against leukemia contacted you and you wanted to write a title: “We will have to tell them“On one side there was Aurélie and on the other, this desire to tell stories.

Yes, I had just become a father for the first time and the story of this song is that I wanted music in church, but not the usual ones. I wanted to write my own little theme. And one of the guests heard it of course and said to me: “Why don’t you write a text? “And then, it’s true that there was this generosity in it, and the story of these children suffering from leukemia came about afterwards.

A word about I loved you, I love you and I will love you. How did you create this song?

So here I come back to my fatherhood story since I was a father for the second time. The story began again. My heart began to swell disproportionately and the song came. I wouldn’t say all by itself, but if I tell you the details… I got on a train in Agen and arrived in Paris, the song was almost finished. It’s because I had, in addition, forced myself to make these rhymes in [è] which are recurrent in the song. I liked this exercise, a challenge to take up and then the theme of love, once again, did the rest.

There is a real modesty in your personality and at the same time, there is a letting go with writing. There is a duality that is incredible in you.

Especially on the sentimental side, yes.

“I reveal myself every time.”

Francis Cabrel

to franceinfo

I think that, especially with love songs, you can’t write half-heartedly. You have to say exactly what you feel. You have to say who you feel it for, you have to say how deeply you feel it and the other person, the one who is going to listen, will be carried away as you are carried away yourself.