1999, France “Souchonne” a little more. With the year 2000, the inevitable globalization and the Internet, we have to turn the page. Alain Souchon lets himself go one last time to nostalgia and remembers in song the left bank of the Seine, of so many Prévert, Vian or Léo Ferré.
“Rive Gauche” defines part of the Souchon style, but the purpose is more complex, built on fault linesthe death of a father in a car accident, shyness with girls, and enormous boredom in the depths of school classrooms.
In “Left Bank”, Alain Souchon signs both lyrics and music. Guitar arpeggio, sad sax, old Saint Germain has folded up shop, goodbye Miles Davis, jazz and the night, hello futility and money, only the memories of a memoirist singer remain: Alain Souchon on the radio at his friend Jean Louis Foulquier remembers Saint Germain.
And again on the radio, many years later in 2020, in “Lumière dans la nuit” hosted by the facetious Edouard Baer, Souchon accompanied by his son Pierresings “Rive gauche”, on the right bank at the radio station.
A more than successful bet for Souchon who enveloped the “Rive Gauche” and the old Saint Germain des Près in its melancholy. To hell with the sham and the thrift stores, the photo is fixed, the song is recorded.