The drama of Reims has brought the misery of psychiatric medicine back into the spotlight. Let us remember how, for decades, artists have been walking the corridors and rooms of psychiatric hospitals.
We have to remember where we come from. In 1974, this song interpreted by Serge Reggiani, Villejuif, marks the opinion. She mentions the Paul Guiraud hospital in Villejuif, and its unit for difficult patients, where people are automatically placed for the dangers they represent for themselves or for society.
The tragedy of Reims has brought back into the news, for the umpteenth time, the misery of psychiatric medicine, of which one has the hopeless impression that it takes bloody dramas for it to seem to arouse the interest of the public authorities. But, insofar as our popular culture is a reflection of our collective consciousness, singers have been talking about it for a very long time. And our artists have always been moved by the suffering of the sick.
Among all the songs written around the question of compulsory placements, a text by Michel Rivgauche, set to music by Marguerite Monnot, was very moving, at the dawn of the 1960s, by the voice of Edith Piaf.
In the second episode of These songs that make the news, airing this weekend, you hear excerpts from:
Serge Reggiani, Villejuif, 1974
Edith Piaf, white coats, 1960
Alain Kan, white coats, 1976
Martha Wainwright, white coats, 2009
Patricia Kass, white coats, 2014
Juliette Greco, The crazy girl, 1972
Serge Gainsbourg, Lunatic Asylum, 1976
Candy, I am not a schizophrenic, 1971
Kamini, Schizophrenic, 2007
Kamini, Psychostar Show, 2007
Edith Piaf, white coats, 1960
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And you can also find on this link the podcast 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.