“This career has allowed me to be happy at times and unhappy at others”

Every day, a personality invites itself into the world of Élodie Suigo. Tuesday March 26, 2024: The author, composer, lyricist and performer, Jean-Jacques Debout. He is back as a performer with the album “Frida Kahlo”.

Jean-Jacques Debout is in his own right an immense memory of the history of French song. He wears several hats: author, composer, performer. Initially he was a performer with notorious songs like The golden buttons (1961), then he embarked on a career as a successful author with emblematic songs written for the greatest: For me, life will begin Or My guitar for Johnny Hallyday in 1963, All my friends (1963) or Like a boy (1967) for Sylvie Vartan. He is also the father of intergenerational hits and musical comedy shows by the woman who became his wife, Chantal Goya. He is back as a performer with the album Frida Kahlo14 songs that tell the story of his life and the characters who shaped his existence.

franceinfo: What is your view on this journey which is both disjointed and constant?

Jean-Jacques Debout: I wrote this record telling myself that it was perhaps the last, because at 84 years old, you know very well that you have the future behind you. But I wanted to write these songs that were close to my heart, because they were part of my life. The songs that I sing on this album are obviously stories that I lived.

Initially, you were a performer, then you wrote a lot for others, you took care of Chantal Goya and there, you returned to the front of the stage. We always feel this emotion at the idea of ​​singing.

“It was my life to write songs.”

Jean-Jacques Debout

at franceinfo

I returned at the beginning of the 1950s as a courier for Raoul Breton editions. I had the chance to meet only geniuses there: Charles Trenet, Gilbert Bécaud and then Michel Legrand, with whom I sang at the Alhambra with his great orchestra. I started there, and all my meetings encouraged me to continue.

The story is like a fairy tale. But at the beginning, your father was a great optician – he notably took care of General de Gaulle – and was convinced that you were going to take over. One day, you tell him that it won’t be possible. He kicks you out of the family apartment and sends you to boarding school in Juilly. There is a song in which you address this period. How do you experience it?

I didn’t take it well when I learned that he was putting me in a boarding school. But when I got there, I ran into Jacques Mesrine who became my friend. Before becoming the public enemy that we know, he was, at the time, rather the public friend of all the war orphans at the school. Jacques had a heart of gold. When his mother came to see him on Sundays, he would say: “Ah, there is someone who has shoes that are leaking, that one has a torn sweater“and I see his mother again. She opened her bag which was full of bank notes and she said: “Well listen, take what you need“. So he took the tickets and as soon as he got back to school, he went to see the orphans concerned and he bought them everything they were missing. And I said to myself, this boy is still wonderful. J I was far from thinking that he was going to have the ending that you know.

Ultimately you will devote yourself more to others than to yourself. Don’t you regret that today with the release of this record?

No, I’ll tell you, personally, I’m not my type of man. I have never tolerated myself well. It’s always been like this since my childhood. It’s perhaps due to a schoolmaster, whom I ran into one year, and who kept hitting me with a ruler everywhere.

“I have always preferred to work for others than for myself. To work for yourself, you still have to love yourself a little. And I didn’t love myself enough to be able to have a great career as a performer.”

Jean-Jacques Debout

at franceinfo

And today ?

Today, I’m very happy to have made this record. It was Chantal who pushed me to do it and who produced it. I hope she won’t be disappointed. This is the wish I make.

A song is dedicated to him: Do not laugh. Your relationship is incredible. She truly is the love of your life, the woman of your life.

Ah, I love it!

As much as you are the man of his life, you have allowed him to build himself. You even say that you grew up together.

Yes, some people grow old together, but we, instead of growing old, have grown up.

To finish, Golden buttons has Frida KahloPassing by Snipe, the number 1s of Maritie and Gilbert Carpentier, your songs for Michel Sardou, but also for television credits. What do you think of this life then?

It allowed me to be happy at times, to be unhappy at others. Because you shouldn’t think that writing songs and singing is always fun. And then all of a sudden, there’s always a little ray of sunshine that reappears and makes you want to sing again. I also really like listening to others.

Watch this interview on video: