The death of singer Michel Delpeche (1946-2016) in January of this year saddened many French people, Francophones and Francophiles, and this post is dedicated to him. Michel Delpeche represents popular culture at its best, in its nobility, simplicity and sincerity. His songs are landmarks in his own life and in the lives of many others. Like a painting or a photograph, each one captures the scents of an era, the tone of a mood. Having made their mark in the XNUMXs and XNUMXs, they are now part of the French singer's legacy.
The poems of Michel Delfs
Michel Delfèche himself testifies that during his fifty years of activity he recorded far fewer songs than other singers of his generation. He has about two hundred songs to his credit, including thirty hits, which are well known to the public, especially to his contemporaries but also to young people. Delfèche wrote the lyrics to most of his songs himself and a large number of them dramatize his life, partially or completely. For example, the song “La Loire-et-Chartre” (1977), the name of a district in France, in the region Loire valley, about which he says: These (the villagers, his family members, described in the poem) were not them, it was not me, but almost.
Le Loir-et-Cher
Michel grew up in Courbevoie, a city bordering the capital to the west, and his mother was a quintessential Parisian, but his father's roots are planted in the very same district he sings about. When Michel was a child, the family would travel every vacation to the small village, near Chambord, where his grandparents, uncles, cousins, and relatives of various degrees lived, who never left the place. His father was happy when he returned to his quarry to work, and when he retired, he moved to his village. Michel was torn between the need to live in the big city and the love of the countryside.
The lyrics of the song “La Loire-et-Sor” reflect the singer’s feelings that time is pressing and he is in a hurry to finish his glass of beer, find a gas station, and return to Paris. The portrait of the peasants, who understand but do not understand the singer’s haste, is drawn in a few words with gentle irony.
The song, “You don’t seem to like eating with us, you don’t seem to like walking in the mud,” which expresses the family’s hurt by the city dweller’s sense of superiority, who seems to deny his rural roots, has aroused sympathy in the hearts of many French people. The department of La Loire-et-Cher symbolizes all the departments of France The country girl, so far from Paris in her mindset and way of life. The parable of the prodigal son from the New Testament and the fable of the city mouse and the country mouse attributed to Aesop serve as the conceptual backdrop for the song. The playful country-rock melody completes its charm. “La-Loire-à-Cher” became a hit.
Michel Delpech's father was a metal polisher who worked hard from morning until night in his workshop to provide a decent living for the family who lived in a modest house on the outskirts of Paris. The mother was a housewife who raised Michel and his two sisters. Michel spent his high school years in a boarding school but left in 1964 before his high school graduation to devote himself to a singing career. His first success was “At Loret’s” (1965), a song he wrote when he was only 18, but which tells, as if from the perspective of an adult looking back on his past, about the owner of the neighborhood cafe, a kind and comforting mouth, an ideal mother. “At Loret’s” reminded many people of their youth, of spending time together in a familiar corner to recharge their batteries with friendship and affection. Game machines, glasses of drink, squinting at the girls, what Frenchman from Delfez’s generation did not have those experiences, hence the success of the nostalgic and somewhat melancholic hit.
At Chez Laurette
The song was born from the singer's visits to two restaurants, once as a teenager and once as a child. The first is the brasserie, near the Pontoise train station, where he spent a few hours with his friends on a Friday evening before heading home from boarding school. The second is Christian's bar, near his home in Courbevoie. Little Michel's mother would sometimes entrust him to the kind-hearted, open, and talkative Christian, and he would revel in the relaxed, pleasant atmosphere in the bar where soldiers from the nearby barracks would drink coffee or a glass of white wine. Lorette in the song is a little different from Christian, rounder, more normal than her. Lorette is the maternal ideal that little Michel needed, that every little child needs. Lorette is a warm, loving mother who opens her arms with a smile and solves problems.
Michel's mother devotedly and lovingly cared for all his needs and helped him during the severe mental crisis that erupted after his separation from his first wife to the best of her ability. Michel and his two children found refuge in their parents' home for a while. He returned her love and appreciated all her efforts, but notes her difficulty in expressing emotions, which he believes stemmed from deficiencies in her own childhood.
The parents' concern for Michel's financial future turns out to be misguided. The singer's success skyrockets, beyond expectations. Performances in the best halls in France and around the world, millions of records are sold. Michel Delfèche becomes an idol. The song "White is White" (1969) constitutes, according to Delfèche himself, the real turning point in his public career. The singer behind the songs acquires real popularity, his face is revealed for all to see. The song celebrates the Isle of Wight Festival, which was attended by Bob Dylan and Donovan, among others. The song's name includes a play on words - White is the name of the English island where the hippie festival was held, and in a different spelling but with the same pronunciation, White also means white. “White is White” is therefore an ironic nod to the hit “Black is Black” (1966) by the Spanish rock band Los Braves, whose French adaptation “Noir se Noir” was sung by Johnny Alliday.
White is White Wight is Wight
Other hits of the early 1973s include “How Beautiful Marianne Was” (1974), “The Hunter” (1975), and “When I Was a Singer” (XNUMX). “How Beautiful Marianne Was” is a love song for Mother Marianne, the allegorical figure of the French Republic for its values: liberty, equality, and fraternity. At the same time, the song implicitly protests the loss of hopes that have been dashed. Marianne, who was so beautiful when she walked the streets of Paris and sang the revolutionary anthem loudly, has lost her four sons (the four republics) and no longer recognizes her fifth son (the current republic). It should be noted that in all of Delfez’s songs, in which there is some kind of protest, she appears only implicitly.
How beautiful Marianne was.
“The Hunter” is a moment in the life of a man who walks at five in the morning, with his rifle and his dog, in a group of hunters, through foggy marshes (the typical landscape of the region between the Loire River and one of its tributaries, the Le Cher). In the face of the flocks of birds migrating in the sky towards the Mediterranean Sea, he feels guilty, separates from the group and takes his dog for a pleasant walk in nature. The birds soaring towards the clouds, the singing forest, the sun rising over the marshes, the clearing, blue sky, all of these give the hunter a feeling of happiness. How he would like to accompany the birds on their journey to their final destination. Already in this early poem, young Michel’s longings for renewal, purification and transcendence are revealed.
The Hunter Le Chasseur
“When I Was a Singer” is an entertaining song, full of humor and especially self-irony, in which Michel Delfez, who is still a young singer, not yet thirty, at the peak of his success, foresees his future as a seventy-three-year-old retired singer suffering from rheumatism and recalls the glory days when he sang before the enthusiastic crowd in white boots, a prominent belt buckle and an open shirt over a medallion chain. His wife would wait for him in hiding in the Mercedes so as not to fall into the wrath of the fans again. All his follies would be forgiven him. All his wishes would be fulfilled. He would never pay a speeding ticket because the police would recognize him. His broad smile was his trademark. Now, when he drags his feet and rests most of the time, he does remember that period, but he has other pleasures. And if Delpesh was wrong about the timing of his death and gave himself extra years of life (he died at the age of sixty-nine, less than a month before his seventieth birthday), in terms of other areas of interest, he was right.
When I was a singer
The humorous song unfortunately has an opposing side, a serious, heavy, black one that took over the playful attitude and swallowed it up. Michel Delpech's rapid success, all those privileges that he talks about in this song in a taunting tone, the ease with which his life was conducted, all of these were his downfalls. Everything was given to him very easily and suddenly at a young age, without him being ready for it, he says, and without him having to struggle, everything was supposedly earned for him. At the age of twenty he was already a successful singer without experiencing the difficulties that many other artists face. He felt like an all-powerful king, confident in himself, and the feeling of grandeur slowly led to a feeling of emptiness that completely took over him.
The cracks that have opened up in his soul are evidenced by the song “Confessions,” apparently intended for his beloved audience. Its lyrics foreshadow the dramatic fall. In this song, called “Confessions,” the prince of dreams is tired, his blue dream has turned a little gray, his golden sword is made of tin. And the transition from third person to first person takes on its full meaning, in retrospect, knowing that ten years of depression await the idol of the masses who writes to his audience of admirers: I no longer have the strength to deceive, to be the knight on the white horse. To win your love, I told you lies, I invented everything, but tonight I close my eyes and tonight I open your eyes.
Confessions Les Aveux
In this song, Michel Delfez talks about his desire to be freed from the prison he has imprisoned himself in with his own hands and in which he has lived for many years. He loves the public, how he cannot continue to deceive and play the role assigned to him (both by the fans and by the record companies and the surrounding industry). After he has been wrong and deceived, only the removal of the masks will bring about liberation.
Michel did not expect that the long-awaited redemption would come only after ten years of “long illness,” “prolonged dying.” These are the honest words with which he describes this period of exile in one of his most somber and moving poems associated with it: “Long Illness” (1979).
Long illness
The straw that broke the camel's back was the separation from his wife. Michel Delfèche married the singer Chantal Simone, whom he met in a musical in which they both acted and sang a duet together. A premature marriage at the age of twenty that produced two children who would grow up with Michel. After five years, in 1973, Chantal Simone left home. The song "The Divorced" (1973), which depicts a peaceful separation, does not reflect the painful and turbulent autobiographical reality.
The Divorced The Divorced
The man speaking in the song “The Divorced,” whose wife has left him in tears, puts aside his wounded pride, understands his estranged wife’s steps, walks towards her, offers her his help, and even wishes her a new and happy life. Two years later, influenced by the song, a law was enacted in France allowing divorce by mutual consent. Previously, each spouse wishing to divorce had to prove the other’s guilt. The song shows that it is possible to divorce without slander, accusations, slander, and quarrels, without subjecting the children to double suffering.
The separation from the mother of his children worsened Delpesh's condition. The life he led as a successful singer - the inexperienced young man succumbed to the temptations of debauchery, alcohol and drugs - clashed with his spiritual needs. The gap between the image he was required to project and his true self led to a complete disintegration of his personality.
Many singers experience a crisis when success turns its back on them. Michel Delfez collapsed, before the age of thirty, for about ten years, in the midst of dizzying success. Delfez walked on stars, went from one hit to another, was one of the biggest record sellers. Until, as he says, an arrow stuck between his shoulders.
He describes his prolonged agony as falling into a bottomless black pit, with the devil himself pulling the strings and lowering him lower and lower each time. Space became narrower and suffocating, time no longer had any meaning. What hope does a miner trapped in an avalanche have?
Turning to mystical paths not only did not help him but also increased his confusion. Eastern wisdom and the religion of Voodoo did not suit him. Michel became a broken and dismembered doll that every spiritual teacher, sorcerer, magician, and sorcerer pulled in a different direction. A meeting with an experienced psychiatrist, Dr. Charles Brissé, who understood his needs, put an end to his wanderings and led him to Christianity, a stone from his quarry, a path that was as if tailor-made for him. The period of solitude in the monastery was good for him, but living as a hermit forever was not possible for him. Michel still wandered the streets of Paris until he decided to break away from the past and start a new life in the United States.
Shortly before the trip, with the tickets for him and his children already in his pocket, Michel found a letter in the mailbox from a young woman living next door who asked for a meeting. Genevieve, a medium and painter, mother of two small children, informed him that she had seen him in a vision dead in a distant land. This was the radiant and strong woman, loving life, tailored to his measurements, who showed him that there was a middle ground between seclusion in a convent and wallowing in debauchery. Genevieve divorced her husband, Michel began proceedings to obtain a divorce from his estrangement. These proved unnecessary when, in 1985, the tragic news arrived of Chantal Simon's suicide along with her partner in Auckland.
If the meeting with Genevieve in 1983 heralded the end of the sunset, then the meeting with Jesus a few weeks later in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre marked a new birth. Michel Delpech experienced an epiphany that changed his life.
The trip with Genevieve to Jerusalem was an unexpected turn. Amidst the flashes of pilgrims' cameras, in those few minutes that one could spend in the small compound, Michel Delfs knelt down and cried, enveloped in comfort, softness, and happiness. It was a mystical moment that separated his life so far from his future, in which he was freed from the destructive baggage that had weighed on him for so many years. Michel Delfs was reborn. The past became obsolete, was discarded, and the soul, as it were, was rewoven.
Surprisingly, this was not the first time Michel Delfèche had visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. During the crisis, the singer had made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and had reached the same place, but had returned the same way he had come. After the birth of his third son, whom he and Genevieve shared, he returned to the supposed tomb again and did not feel the emotional experience he had had on his previous visit. The significant event could only have occurred at that particular moment in Delfèche's life. And he did not ask to know whether Jesus was really buried there or not. He accepted the one-time, life-saving gift and returned to Paris.
From now on, the singer lived in harmony with his inner self. He met a friend, a guide, in the person of Jesus, flesh and blood, a real friend, who embodied his own voice, his conscience. Fame, success and profits moved to second place. True values, avoiding evil, responsibility, honor and loyalty rose to first place. Delfesh continued to love the pleasures of life, without the extremes of his younger years, and was no longer tormented by the feelings of guilt that tormented him afterwards. His life took on meaning even if he had to continue to struggle not to let the negative voice in his soul harm him. Fragile but not broken, until the end.
Michel Delfesh once again took the stage and released many more albums. He was indeed blessed with a good creative and family life for another thirty years until throat and tongue cancer attacked him in 2013. Michel Delfesh showed great mental strength and confidence in his recovery. In an interview promoting the children's Bible stories album "Dolly Bible" (2014), in which he plays the character of Abraham preparing for his death in the song "End of the Road," the singer makes it clear that this is not the end of his own path. He did not write the lyrics of the song, and it is merely a role. However, two years later, despite a hopeful respite, his turn will come. Behind the words of Abraham in the song, who is saying goodbye to his life on earth ("I bless my luck") and looking forward to a meeting with eternity ("Accept me, my father"), it is difficult in retrospect not to hear the voice of the minister himself.
The end of the road
https://youtu.be/akSnSGkb10Q
It should be noted that in one of the interviews, given by Michel Delpeche about a decade ago, he emphasizes the fact that his songs are intended for everyone, for those who believe, in any religion, and for those who do not believe, in any religion. “I am a singer and a Christian,” he clarified, “and not a Christian singer.” Michel Delpeche, one of the greatest singers in France, never sought to influence, but only to express, to cause pleasure, and to help.
Rest in peace, dear troubadour, in your bed!
The autobiographical books written by Michel Delfèche:
L'homme qui avait bâti sa maison sur le sable, Robert Laffont, 1993
La jeunesse passe trop lentement, Plon, 1911
J'ai osé Dieu..., Points, 1915
Live! Plon, 1915
Link to his official website:
https://www.secavi.com/micheldelpech/