“Thanks to empathy we can make ourselves available to others”

Every day, a personality invites itself into the world of Élodie Suigo. Friday January 26, 2024: The author, composer and performer, Lara Fabian. She released a new single heralding a future album: “Ta Pain”, co-written with Slimane.

Since his arrival on the scene in Canada with the albums Lara Fabian (1991) and Carpe Diem (1994) for which she received a good number of Félix awards, the equivalent of our Victoires de la Musique, Lara Fabian is part of our lives. In France, its adoption by the public was instantaneous with the release of the album Pure in 1997 and its titles have become essential such as: All, I love you, Humana, If you love me or even to The difference.

Lara Fabian has never ceased to shed light on life, with its joys, its sorrows, its bursts of laughter sometimes focused on breakups, pages that turn and adventures that begin. Friday January 26, she is back with a new single entitled: Your pain co-written and composed with Slimane.

franceinfo: Your pain is a ballad and you announced it on your social networks with this text: “I waited so long to offer you the best“. Why this wait?

Lara Fabian : Because I’ve been talking for weeks with this phrase which was a sort of formula that we had thought of which is: “The best is yet to come“. Why this wait? Well because it was right to do it at a time when everything was aligned, where everything was really polished, finalized.

When we discover the title of the song, we understand that it is about absorbing a feeling in the place of others, as if we became a shield for them, as if we wanted to bear their pain. That’s it ?

Or transform it. If the other agrees, of course, because we absolutely do not have this option if we are not allowed to do so. We may want to help someone, to help them heal, but if the other gives us permission, if the other opens their heart wide enough so that we can draw from it what they necessary, well yes, I believe that we can transform someone’s pain. I think we can “alchemize” the sentence, it’s possible.

How did this song with Slimane come about?

It’s because I called him. I’ve been observing him for months, even years, and saying to myself: there’s something that brings us together.

“We have a common soul with Slimage, I felt it.”

So I asked him if he was willing to have dinner with me. He answered me : “Yes“. We sat down in complete simplicity, we shared a lot of things. And without giving anything away, I can simply say that indeed I was not mistaken, we have something in common. So the real question is that moment was: What do we do with what brings us together? How do we tell it together? I talked to him about certain things I was going through, he told me talked about certain things he was going through. And we wanted to write a song, not only about resilience, but about the possibility, in concrete terms, of doing something for the other, of making sense for the other . And we all have, you might contradict me, but in our inner circle, someone who at a given moment really needs help, but doesn’t necessarily show it. And if we’re a little empathetic, we can make oneself available to others thanks to this empathy. And that’s really what Slimane and I wanted to talk about.

You talk about childhood, you say that some children remember it. Inevitably, we talk about childhood wounds. As a child, did you also carry a form of pain?

Who has not borne some form of punishment? I even want to tell you: who has not inherited certain pans that, despite themselves, our parents pass on to us without any malice, simply because they themselves do not know what to do with this little pain which sometimes becomes a companion, a habit. And then they transmit it to us because they themselves did not draw it up.

“I belong to a generation whose parents were not very inclined to talk about what hurt them. It was more of an omerta. It was more of silence about what hurt.”

Lara Fabian

at franceinfo

I think I am the fifth generation of women who can define themselves as an agent of change. I saw women suffering one after the other, from great-grandmother to grandmother, then my mother and then I had a very large mirror in front of me and I asked myself the question for a long time: By being the heir to this pain, am I also necessarily obliged to go through the same stages?

And Your painit’s a bit like this possibility of saying to someone in one way or another: “You know, I’m in pain and I can’t get through it. Is there something in you that has the impulse to help me?“It’s a bit like what we do when we’re in great pain and we no longer have a solution, it’s that in an almost silent, tacit way, we express an immense call for help, a huge “Help”. And if in front of us, we have someone empathetic enough, we can catch the ball and get help. So when I was little, I didn’t always have that opportunity.

“As a child, I didn’t always have the impression that in my silences, my pain or pain was understood.”

Lara Fabian

at franceinfo

You are very close to the children and there is a kind of sounding board between what you are currently doing with “Dream Team” on TF1, you coach them, you show them a path, you support them. We always feel this benevolent look on them. Are you touched to hear them perform your songs?

In fact, it touches me to hear them say who they are through these interpretations. It is their desire to declare themselves through these songs. What do they tell us about themselves? How do they do it? What are some of their beliefs that sometimes limit them? How can I help clear all this up with very simple words?

“I love the idea that what I have accumulated in my backpack over 30, 35 years can be useful to someone else and in particular to children.”

I love this idea.

The single Your pain comes out Friday January 26. Anxious or not?

Always. In fact, I’m not anxious, but certainly feverish!