The first punk record of the year is signed by an 80-year-old singer. While she could take it easy in her apartment near Saint-Malo (Ille-et-Vilaine), Brigitte Fontaine continues to put herself in danger and surprise us with the aptly named "Terre Neuve", seven years after " I have the honor to be ”. Devilishly electric, scathing and touching, this is the disc we no longer hoped for from the face of rockers, from Noir Désir to New Yorkers from Sonic Youth, from Etienne Daho to Matthieu Chedid, with whom she has recorded the hit "Y a des zazous" in 2001.
She made it with the brilliant guitarist Yan Péchin, whom she shared for a long time with Alain Bashung, and her husband and favorite composer Areski Belkacem. Adulated poet, pen for Juliette Gréco, Vanessa Paradis or Maurane, she signs the vibrant texts of this 19th album which, by her freedom, recalls the last record of her great friend Jacques Higelin. A hymn to life, a finger of honor to death.
Why did you name your new album “Terre neuve”?
BRIGITTE FONTAINE. Because our work with Yan Péchin tends towards a new ground, which we discover with fear and pleasure. I wanted to move on, I knew I had things to do and I had to do them. It's my most punk album. I was apparently completely punk before I even recorded my first album, "13 decadent and spooky songs", which I don't like. It was not me who found this title any more than "Brigitte Fontaine is crazy", who made me a pan in the ass for a long time.
Do you still suffer from this image?
Some assholes on TV manipulated me. They invited me to be the clown when I just wanted to have fun. They took the opportunity to say that I was crazy, in the folding style, while I am not like that at all. I only want joyful things. I ruthlessly chase away bad memories, of pain, of suffering.
You sing "My heart is a cigarette butt that cannot go out" ...
I wrote it in a moment of enormous suffering (note: it broke several vertebrae in a fall in 2016) . Music helps me endure the pain.
In the rich monograph of Benoît Mouchart (Ed. Castor Astral), we discover that you have undergone four abortions…
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I almost died the first three times. My father saved my life once. It had triggered a huge hemorrhage, I was going to snap, and he hugged me, ran like crazy to the clinic. The last time, the job was well done. But I was raped by the practitioner.
You wrote in 2013 a wonderful song for your father, "Father" ...
I can't listen to it because I'm crying.
"J'irai pas" is a punk nursery rhyme ...
I made a mistake while singing "I will not go to your summer camps", I should have said "I will not go to your holidays". Because it is not a child who speaks, it is someone rebellious. I hold it against society. This is rotten. By money, by the way of looking at the world and the rest. But they are adults, you have to forgive them. I have never been an adult.
You are straddling words ...
I love words and I think they give it back to me. I have written twenty-two books, less known than my activities as a singer… Finally, I am rather a musical actress. When I was little, I knew that I would write and that I would do theater. Singing happened by chance and I like that. Poetry is made to be sung.
What do you read ?
I used to read a lot when I was young. But I no longer read, I prefer to listen to music, the Clash, "Lady in Satin" by Billie Holiday, Dylan and Gainsbourg, my big darling.
In "Vendetta", you make rhyme "strong sex" and "to death" ...
I am polite but I can be as violent and coarse, coarse as a marquise. There, it's so violent against guys that it's funny. But what I say is true: "male murderer". Every two days, spouses kill. It's a much more important fight than feminizing names. Transforming writer into writer is ridiculous.
Did the wind of revolt blowing in the country influence this album?
I would like them to go even further. Let them destroy. "Destroy", as the divine Marguerite said ... Duras. She had it in the waistcoat! Even if he was very ugly.
Why did you accept the Legion of Honor in April 2017?
Because it was François Hollande who asked me for it and gave it to me when he was president. We laughed a lot. I decorated it with a pine of the order of the Babar of Honor (Editor's note: in reference to his nickname within the Socialist Party) . I also hoped it would protect me from the cops. Well no ! Two years ago, to take me to the hospital against my will and against all reason, they dragged me down a staircase on my back, further aggravating my vertebral fracture. But it's not my style to file a complaint.
EDITOR'S NOTE: 4/5
"Terre Neuve", by Brigitte Fontaine, Verycords, 15 euros. On tour: February 18 in Lille (Nord), March 29 at L'Olympia (Paris IXe)…
