Dear Françoise Hardy, you left last Tuesday to join your friends in their clouds, and since then a shower of testimonies has fallen on your memory. We dedicate the icon of the yé-yé to you. Icon you were, but yé-yé, there is room to doubt it.
You were part of the generation sixties, that’s why we associate you with the trend of the time, but you were more Saint-Germain-des-Prés than Saint-Tropez. Your songs were not twists, but sad. And we should classify you with Gréco, Brel and Ferré rather than with Johnny, Sheila and Eddy.
You were 17 when you wrote a jingle filled with your DNA, All the boys and girls. Your record company believed so little in this title, so much against the tide of the yé-yé wave, that it put it at the end of your first super 45 rpm, banking first and foremost on Oh, oh darling, French version of an American country rock hit. Fortunately, we can always trust the audience to discover the hidden treasures, and it was for the B side that they turned around.
All the boys and girls my age
Walking down the street, two by two
All the boys and girls my age
Know well what it is to be happy
And eye to eye and hand in hand
They leave in love without fear of tomorrow
Yes, but I go alone, through the streets, with a broken soul
Yes, but I go alone because no one loves me…
The anthem of those left behind. The anthem of the lonely. The anthem of those who don’t pull punches. If Johnny was the idol of young people, if Sylvie was the most beautiful to go dancing, you, Françoise, were on the other side, on the side of lost souls.
You understood the dismay of the lost person whom no one chooses, who has the impression of being alone in the world, of being the only rejection.
If, in the street, we believe that all the boys and girls walk in pairs, it is because we do not see those who go alone. Loneliness makes you invisible.
Millions of us thought that this song had been written for us, only for us. She helped us to come out, to name our reality, to live our pain. And to hang on to the verses at the end. That’s not a happy ending. It’s just a maybe end.
I wonder when the day will come
Where eye to eye, where hand in hand
I will have a happy heart without fear of tomorrow…
The song doesn’t promise anything. She doesn’t say it’s going to happen, but just mentioning it helps to console her. We’re not smiling yet, but we’re stopping crying.
PHOTO GEORGES BENDRIHEM, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE ARCHIVES
Françoise Hardy during the recording of the show The good life in Paris, in 1985
This work will always be current. When we heard “all the boys and girls my age are walking in the street, two by two…”, back in the day, we thought of a boy with a girl, but it could just as well be a boy with a boy or a girl with a girl. And the person who goes alone may be looking for one or the other.
In the 1960s, lost souls were the ones that no one went to pick up for the late-night slow dance. Today, they are the ones who get “swiped” left on Tinder, but the indifference still hurts just as much.
Françoise, you wrote a song that will never stop saying out loud what many people think for themselves.
My personal message is thank you for accompanying me. If there weren’t two, I had your voice with me.
My universal message is that you are more than the icon of yé-yé, you are one of the icons of great French song. All the boys and girls was the first pearl, then there was a whole necklace: The time of love, the first good time of the day, My friend the Rose, Personal message, How to say goodbye to you, The house where I grew up, What’s the point ?, The question, So many beautiful things, Leave me a place…
And of course, you are the unforgettable performer of the most beautiful song about friendship ever heard, by Jean-Max Rivière and Gérard Bourgeois.
Since you have returned to the depths of the clouds, I hope you smile again on many more faces.