On October 2, Anne Sylvestre was on stage in Vannes (Morbihan) at the Les Emancipées festival.
A word that suits her so well… And she announced four "New Rides", the name of her last show, next January at La Cigale.
But at the beginning of October, she had returned to Paris tired.
Abnormally tired.
His heart, which had given a lot for eighty-six years, ended up giving way on Monday evening in Paris.
May she forgive us once again, but Anne Sylvestre is, for most of us, “les Fabulettes” first and foremost.
Because we all have in our disco at least one of his eighteen albums of children's songs released between 1962 and 2009. And that's nothing to be ashamed of.
To children and their parents alike, she offered her poetry on a human scale, her chiseled writing and her talents as a melodist.
And it is not two of her best heirs, Aldebert and the Ogres of Barback, who had invited her on their respective “Childhood” and “Adventures of Pitt'Ocha” that will contradict us.
Three years ago, during a fascinating meeting at “L'Oiseau bleu”, its neighborhood café-HQ in the twentieth arrondissement of Paris, for its 60 years of career and the release of its “adult” complete - 19 CD and 276 songs - she was offended that the title "La Reine des Fabulettes does not let go".
"I was so confined to the
Fabulettes
," she
sighed
.
That's why I never sang them on stage.
However, I will never deny these little fables born at the same time as my first daughter, because they gave me great freedom.
Like my other songs, they haven't been on the radio or on TV.
I owe their success mainly to teachers.
"
An inimitable voice
Few artists have had so many schools in their (on) name.
About ten throughout France, which delighted the Lyonnaise, who grew up in the very poetic suburb of Tassin-la-Demi-Lune.
But she confessed to us that she would have loved to inaugurate a high school or an auditorium one day.
No doubt that will happen, as Anne Sylvestre will remain as a major singer-songwriter.
You have to (re) listen to “a Witch like the others” on women, one of his favorite themes, “Carcasse” on self-acceptance, “Lake Saint-Sébastien” on pollution, “Gay marions us ”on homosexual marriage,“ Ronde Madeleine ”on the diktat of thinness or, of course,“ People who doubt ”, his most famous song.
Anne Sylvestre wrote and sang about the human condition like few others have.
With an inimitable voice - take it or leave it, like her - and a precision of heart and pen that has earned her the nickname "Brassens en petticoat", a nickname as macho as it flattering that she could only hate.
"Why compare us when we spend our whole life trying to be different?"
she asks.
It's work, a song!
"
Rather than committed, Anne Sylvestre said she was “indignant”.
“I write songs to tell people:
you are not alone
.
Even though I have always forbidden myself to be in politics.
My father's past
(Editor's note: Albert Beugras, a collaborationist during World War II, imprisoned during the Liberation)
weighed heavily.
But it makes me happy when one of my songs is included in the demonstrations, like
No, you don't have a name
, which wasn't about abortion, but for choice.
And which came out in 1974, a year before the Veil law.
Her father's past, which she carried for a long time as a “shameful secret”, forced her to change her name, but also to build character.
“Mom wanted me to attend her trial
(Editor's note: in 1948, when she was 14)
, she told Le Monde two years ago.
And I seen someone point the finger at my dad and say,
This man deserves death.
A hundred times death.
At school, the students quarantined me.
Their parents forbade them to see me […].
OK, my father is a traitor.
But fuck you and I'll be a prize for excellence.
And I was a prize for excellence.
"
"His songs were the richest in poetry"
“When I was a professor of letters in college, I had his songs studied because they were really the richest in poetry and explanations, his friend, the writer Philippe Delerm, remembered for us in 2017.
And they still are.
It's number one.
If a song sums it up, it's
Write so as not to die
.
This magnificent text from 1985 could be his epitaph:
Write, wisdom or delirium / Write to try to say / Everything that hurt me, say everything that saved me / Write and get rid of / Write so as not to sink / Write, instead of spinning, writing and never crying nothing but pen tears / Which turn into words to keep my heart warm
.
"
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The one who made her classes, "with fear in her stomach", in Parisian cabarets in 1957, was quickly recognized by her peers, Barbara, Brassens, Béart, Brel, Boby Lapointe, and between 1963 and 1967 received the Grand International Disc Prize from the Académie Charles-Cros.
She was also a precursor when she created her production company in 1973 after having led battle against her first two record companies, whose contracts seemed to her "unworthy and liberticidal".
"She had an incredible consistency," still ignited Philippe Delerm.
“Its longevity, the fact that it has always filled the rooms, is a model of resistance, added in 2017 his singer friend Yves Jamait.
But still, to take a rant from the former boss of Olympia, Jean-Michel Boris, such a career and not a Victoire de la Musique, it's a shame!
"
Shame also to whoever asked her about her grandson Baptiste, who disappeared at Bataclan.
The wound was too deep.
But she liked to talk about her two daughters, Alice, proofreader, and Philomène, computer graphics designer and potter, and her musician granddaughter, Clémence, alias Mèche, of whom she was a
big fan
.
In interviews as on stage, Anne Sylvestre never cheated.
She didn't let you pass a rickety question any more than she let a misinterpreted text pass.
While most artists over 70 (ab) use this crutch of memory, she made a point of singing her long and dense lyrics without a teleprompter.
Even if it means sometimes losing the thread and laughing about it.
In recent years, she has blown us away with her enthusiasm, her thirst for unspoiled creation and her artistic choices that are still just as demanding, collaborating with Agnès Bihl, Jeanne Cherhal, la Grande Sophie, Gauvain Sers… “I never tried to be fashion, but I'm a singer of my time, she smiled, showing her bright red hair.
If I had started today, I would have sung with loopers
(Editor's note: foot effects pedals that record sounds and repeat them)
and I might have done rock or rap.
Even though her health was declining, she continued to do what she liked best: meeting people.
“Don't count on me to say goodbye,” she said.
It sucks, goodbyes.
"