Yes “sobs are not worth a nail”as Régine sings in If you’re waiting for the diamonds to jump around your neck, nicknames are not worth a nail either. No, that does not sum up Régine. “Queen of the night is not really a title that thrills me, it’s queen for a day, I’m a monster of work, I’m constantly thinking,” she said.
Maybe then we don’t need to look for titles, puns; maybe we can forget the metaphors. You know the story: the “Whisky galore”, the lady-wee, the businesswoman, the crazy success, the all-Paris who slums, the well-honed technique, the genius. “I think people can’t stand being refused, I understood that very quickly, so I decided to do private clubs”she explained.
>> The death at 92 of Régine, a figure of Parisian nights
Régine has gone over time, she has made it has-been, always one step ahead. The very word discotheque is her. Our flirtations on the track, our little butterflies in the belly when we realize that the other is there, it’s her too then.
Why two different words to talk about night and day? The two are inseparable, she is dusk and dawn at the same time. She is the laughter, the banter as they say. EShe is also the tears, when she resumes Blues, a song about violence against women, written by Gainsbourg.
Gainsbourg wrote 17 songs for Régine. Francoise Sagan said: “It was with Régine that I discovered that time could escape clocks, appointments, constraints.”
Régine, that’s why sleep when you can think, what’s the point of sleep when you can dance, and if you don’t sleep, what good are pajamas?