All summer, we talk about a great love song every day. Tuesday, July 25, the story of the most famous métisse of French song, and a literary game by its author.
It’s a sunny postcard, posted from Ibiza, but it could have been from the West Indies or Brazil, or even from Bénodet or Berck Plage – all it takes is a very pretty girl and some prying boys – but that’s not reality, it’s a fantasy – a literary fantasy that’s almost thirty years old.
Julien Clerc records Melissa in 1984 and – curiously – when in France it is fashionable to celebrate interbreeding, we saw few mixed race women in song. And, it must be said, even if Mélissa is a song that is perhaps a little sexist, it avoids going beyond the limits, no doubt because Julien Clerc is himself mixed race, of Guadeloupe origin.
Other respected singers do not escape the annoying clichés of sex tourism…
In this episode of These songs that make the summeryou hear excerpts from:
Julien Clerc, Melissa, 1984
Jean Ferrat, In Santiago, 1965
David McNeill, Hollywood, 1972
Alain Souchon, I want leather 1985
Julien Clerc, Melissa (in public), 1994
Julien Clerc, Melissa (in public), 2002
Julien Clerc, Melissa (in public), 2009
Medhy Custos and Sheryfa Luna, Melissa, 2013
Julien Clerc and Katerine, Melissa, 2019
Julien Clerc, Melissa, 1984
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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.