Every day, a personality invites itself into the world of Élodie Suigo. Friday April 5, 2024: The French-speaking author, composer and performer, Henri Dés. He releases the 3rd opus of the mini-collection of his albums for adults: “Autrement 3 – En avant tout!”
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Henri Dés is this French-speaking author, composer and performer, friend of several generations of children who have become adults and still fans despite the passage of time. It was Salvatore Adamo who made him want to come to Paris and try his hand at the café terraces and small cabarets of the Left Bank. Initially, there were discs for adults, then discs for children. And there, Henri Dés is back with records for adults, in this mini-collection Otherwise. The third part is called Forward everyone!
franceinfo: You finally return to your first loves.
Henri From: Yes, finally my first love… It was a bit of an obligation. I didn’t even know at that time that I was going to be able to make a children’s song. It was something a bit special for me. I wrote songs for adults. And then one day, I had a son and this son, when he was five years old, I wrote him a song because his little sister came into the world. I wrote a song called My little sister is pretty. He sang it with me all the time and I wanted to keep a memory of his voice, but I didn’t want it to go any further. I didn’t think it would go any further, but it was my friends who told me: “Listen Henri, there’s something in these songs, go ahead, keep going“.
Even here, at franceinfo, when the editorial team found out that you were coming, there was a lot of enthusiasm. Does this affect you? You have accompanied several generations even today, they are fans of you.
Yes. When I see what is happening to me, I look around me a little. I tell myself that there are a lot of singers who do completely ephemeral things and who will disappear and be forgotten very quickly. And it turns out that this is not the case.
“Now, in concert, I find myself in front of four generations with, in front of me, a grandfather who is my age, around 80 years old, his son who is 55, his son or daughter who is 30 and his son or his daughter who is five years old so there they are, they meet again at the end of the show.”
It’s Salvatore Adamo who spots you first and it makes you want to come to Paris, to try your hand at café terraces. This is undoubtedly the most difficult audience. You learned your job like that, precisely by facing the most difficult things to begin with.
Yes that’s it. It’s true that I had two or three friends here in Paris, and I asked: what do I do with my guitar? “But you go to Contrescarpe, you stay in front of the bistro on the square with your guitar and there are artists passing by. You’ll see, if the boss is ever bothered because there’s an artist who’s a little late, he’ll call you because you have a guitar“. He will tell you: “Come, sing three songs like that, I can know what you can do.” That’s what I did. I went on stage and sang a few things and then he said to me: “Okay” and I spent a few weeks at Contrescarpe.
This album starts with the title Spend the time. What is your view on the passage of time then?
I can talk about it because I don’t think everyone knows, but I died the first time and I didn’t die so in fact, I was able to experience my death. We notice that time passes quickly. When I gave this record to my daughter, she cried to this song because all of a sudden she realizes that time is passing. She’s almost fifty and then she sees her children leaving the house and it scares her a little. This song isn’t scary, but let’s just say it puts your feet up to say: “There you go, time passes and you have to deal with it“.
The fact of not having gone far, has that changed your vision and your outlook on life?
I had the impression that life gave me one more piece to put in the box and I might as well make the most of it! In fact, I was lucky enough to escape thanks to my friend Nathalie who gave me a cardiac massage which lasted nine minutes. Afterwards, I wanted to come back well. I had extremely strict life discipline regarding my sleep and my diet and perhaps that is why I am still holding up well.
I would like you to tell me about the song The farewell. She is very special in this album, she really has an extraordinary dimension.
My wife left me six years ago now and when she left me, obviously, it was a great pain. We lived together for 55 years. She was the one who accompanied me to Paris when times were difficult. She never said to me:No, no, that word, you can’t say it, I don’t like it“. She listened and said nothing. Just the fact that she said nothing, I understood in her eyes that she had liked something about it and that I could go through with it. When my wife died , it was for me a kind of gaping, terrible hole and I made this song called The farewell. This song tells a little bit about what happened at the hospital when the whole family was gathered around the bed. We knew she was going to leave and we all went to hug her. And that’s kind of what made me want to write this song.
In this album, we have the feeling that the writing is different, but in fact, it’s the subject that changes. I think this is the first time you’ve opened up so much.
“For children’s songs, I try to understand their world and I tell their little sorrows, their jokes etc. In this album, I tell my world, I tell my life and my sorrows.”
It was always the music that brought me the idea of the songs. I write the music and the song comes… A few words come together. There, for these songs, it was only the words. And suddenly they arrived. It couldn’t tell a story to children because they wouldn’t have understood, they wouldn’t have had enough experience to understand. For children’s songs, I try to understand their world and I tell their little sorrows, their jokes etc. There, I tell my world, I tell my life and my sorrows.
Watch this interview on video: