“And me, and me, and me”, his first hit, he had not planned to sing it. The haunting finale of “Play-Boys”, another of his classics, was improvised on the piano by Alain Chamfort. From “J’aime les filles” to “Cactus”, a look back at seven of his standards with Olivier Cachin, co-author with Eric Jean-Jean of a book on Dutronc.
Essential of French song, with titles full of winks and second degree that have not aged, Jacques Dutronc celebrates his 80th birthday on Friday April 28th. His songs ? A series of “happy accidents“, according to journalist Olivier Cachin, co-author with Eric Jean-Jean of the book Dutronc, a life in songs, published by Hugo Doc. Back on the course of the playboy of the sixties in seven timeless standards.
“And me, and me, and me”, but not him at the start
This opposite of the committed song was not intended for Dutronc, who had written the music and tells the backstage. “We only found losers to sing it, so finally, I was told: ‘Go ahead, you, do it, you have accountant’s clothes, it fits the song perfectly’“, we read in the book of Cachin and Jean-Jean. This tube crowns his debut as a singer by becoming one of the hits of the summer of 1966.
“Everything about him is nothing but happy accidents: when he learned the guitar, then ill, in bed, at 16; when, later, he becomes an actor by accident; when he recently went back on stage for a sold-out tour because his son Thomas asked him“, summarizes Olivier Cachin at the microphone of AFP.
“I like girls”, by the ideal son-in-law
“A new little jewel, elegant and clever“than this love letter”with Dutronc-Lanzmann sauce“, addressed to all women, to the bourgeois as well as to factory workers. Love, yes, but with a distance for this big flirty. Because “Love is like the guitar. If you want to be a crack, you have to do it five hours a day. It’s exhausting“, repeated Dutronc in an interview at the time of its release in 1967, teaches us the book by Cachin and Jean-Jean.
They also recall that unlike Antoine and many of his colleagues who give in to hippie fashion tie-dye and with flowers in his hair, Dutronc, converted into a crooner after his debut british rock, decides to wear a made-to-measure three-piece suit, which makes him the ideal son-in-law. New box in the charts in May 1967.
“The Play-Boys” improvised with Alain Chamfort
Jacques Lanzmann sparks again with this text in which Dutronc challenges “professional playboys dressed by Cardin“and assure not to fear”the little twinks who eat their purrs at the Drugstore“because he has”a girl trap, an extra toy that cracks boom hoot“. On the music side, it is Alain Chamfort who plays the organ and the piano.
In the book, he recalls a totally anarchic recording. “We discovered the songs, there were three pieces of chords, Jacques improvised (…) there was no conductor.” And it is to Chamfort that we owe the famous gimmick of piano notes before the legendary “Again !“and the final drum break.”It was a Count Basie gimmick“, he recalls, “Jacques wanted this in the end” but “it’s completely improvised, not calculated.“The song will be a resounding success.
“The Cactus”, “brit-rock” and Pompidou
“Dad, cover your ears: in the history of French rock, my father did such magnificent things”whispered to AFP in 2021 Thomas, alongside Jacques, in preparation for their joint tour. Cacti is a good example. ” We are in a sixties French rock, Kinks influence, it’s very brit-rock, very Anglo-Saxon, before Jacques Dutronc became a crooner, there are big guitar riffs, like on The daughter of Santa Claus”, unfolds Olivier Cachin.
This 1966 hit was even quoted by Georges Pompidou, then Prime Minister, in 1967 at the National Assembly: “I learned that in government life there are also cacti“. The video above is filmed live at the Casino de Paris in 1992.
“It’s five o’clock, Paris is waking up” imagined by “the three Jacques”
It was after a dinner washed down with the three Jacques – Dutronc, Lanzmann (lyricist) and Wolfsohn – that the latter, artistic director of the Vogue record company, had the idea of a piece on Paris at dawn. He asks Lanzmann to draw inspiration from a popular song from the 19th century: Table of Paris at five o’clock in the morning. New success, in 1968. Here again, “the flute part, which makes it all the salt, happens by chance, because there is a flautist in the studio next door, Roger Bourdin, to whom we say: don’t you want to come?“, says Olivier Cachin again.
“The opportunist”, timeless
Recorded shortly after May-68, the song mocks those who have recovered from the protest movement. Those who do not know howonly one gesture“, that of turning their jackets over,”always on the good side“. In 1982, the group Indochine took it over and, in 2015, Dutronc performed it with the group’s singer, Nicola Sirkis, for the album Happy birthday Mr Dutronc. “It’s typically the timeless song, the proof when Indochine takes it up, people think it’s topical, and it’s not just about politics, it can also be applied to cinema and music“, laughs Olivier Cachin.
“Le Petit Jardin”, green before its time
This song denounces the “concreting“creeping of cities, to the detriment of corners of nature, in 1972, when ecology was not yet a central concern. “This is also one of the reasons why Jacques Dutronc refuses for a long time to sing it on stage, because it could sound too militant.“, contextualizes Olivier Cachin.
His son asks him to take it back with him for the enriched reissue of Frenchy, successful album by Dutronc junior. This is the trigger for the joint tour, where Jacques Dutronc sings it again on stage. “It’s a beautiful song, which speaks of his childhood neighborhood“, notes Olivier Cachin. The Lanzmann-Dutronc duo will take up this theme with France disfigured in 1975.