The song forgets tuberculosis

Since BCG, popular music has been like the French population as a whole: it no longer remembers the ravages of an illness which had a profound impact on it for generations – unless there was a worrying case like in a nursery in Gironde.

Tuberculosis is very practical when we write songs, because it is a somewhat spectacular and disturbing word, which offers many possible rhymes, like here with Michel Jonasz in 1978. And we feel that, with him , tuberculosis is a laughing matter.

However, this week, the specter of tuberculosis resurfaced in French news, with the report of the illness of a teacher in a nursery school in Libourne in Gironde. It is this contact with children which is worrying, obviously, because tuberculosis has not disappeared: there will be between 4,500 and 5,000 cases in France in 2023. We are far, far below the terrible prevalence in what we called La Belle Époque, at the beginning of the 20th century.

In the second episode of These songs that make the news, broadcast this weekend, you hear excerpts from:

Michel Jonasz, The drugs got their hands on me, I’m done for, 1978

Patachou, Story of roses, 1951

Jimmie Rodgers, TB Blues, 1931

Laelig Boche and Thomas Pacquet, 3 poems by François Villon (1. Rondeau) by Jean Cartan, 1927 (2020 recording)

Jean Ferrat, The fragile heart, 1985

Georges Cheffer, Song of the anti-tuberculosis stamp, 1934

Cayouche, Sanatorium, 2008

Aida Samb, Daan Tuberculosis, 2014

You can also follow the news of this column on Twitter.

And you can also find the podcast on this link Behind our voices, with the writing and composition secrets of eight major artists of the French scene, Laurent Voulzy, Julien Clerc, Bénabar, Dominique A, Carla Bruni, Emily Loizeau, Juliette and Gaëtan Roussel.