Françoise et Les Expos (deuxième partie)
More on Françoise Hardy's 1969 visit to Jarry Park — plus some vintage Montreal nightlife!
Greetings, Jagged Time Lapsers!
First of all, I’d like to welcome my new subscribers, and thank you from the bottom of my still-beating heart for pushing JTL over the 2,000-subscriber mark this past weekend. I really appreciate your support! (And if you’re reading this and have not subscribed yet, please consider doing so…)
Second, when I posted this piece a couple of weeks back about the late, great Françoise Hardy's encounter with the brand new Montreal Expos in the spring of 1969, I bemoaned my inability to translate the La Presse feature that covered her visit.
To the rescue came my Facebook friend and fellow journalist Philip Moscovitch, who very kindly offered to put his French skills to work on my behalf. Armed with a high-res reproduction of the May 8, 1969 issue of Spec, the weekly entertainment insert magazine of the Montreal newspaper La Presse — courtesy of Montreal journalist Andy Riga — Philip came through with flying tri-colors.
Though it’s a bit of an “of its time” puff piece, which makes it pretty clear that a day at the ballpark wasn’t exactly tops on Mme. Hardy’s priority list, it’s still a pretty enjoyable read —and I figured that those of you who dug my previous post on the subject would like to read it, as well…
Françoise Hardy: “Next Time I’ll Sing For You”
by Yves Leclerc
“Do you like meeting people?”
“Yes, a lot.”
“Do you meet a lot of people?”
“Very few.”
She is tall, very slim, calm. You might even say she seems absent. She answers questions with a yes or a no. If you want her to explain, you have to either press the question, or have the patience to wait.
It’s only when she smiles, all too rarely, that you get the sense she is even aware that you’re there.
Françoise Hardy is in Quebec for about 10 days. After she leaves here, she’s going to spend a few days in New York and Los Angeles. No shows. It’s a promotional tour: radio, TV, and interviews with journalists.
It’s a contrast to writing and singing songs. That, she likes. It’s not work.
Making songs
She hardly talks at all about her private life.
And her professional life?
“Traveling. Traveling, hotel rooms, airports, train stations, cars, photo studios, TV studios, waiting…
“I like traveling, but not too much. I don’t like being all alone, and when you talk about traveling you’re talking about solitude.”
What does she like? Making songs.
“It’s the only thing I really know how to do. The only thing I can really be even a little bit proud of. For me, songwriting is a way to dream. It’s soul-searching. It makes up for disappointments…”
Why does she think she’s been successful? She doesn’t really know. Maybe people recognize themselves in what she does. Maybe they like the melody. Or maybe something makes them laugh.
No plans
She doesn’t make plans, or at least not far in advance. Reality overtook her expectations, and even her dreams, right from the start of her career.
The future? She sees it as a continuation of the present: “I have a vague sense that someday I’ll have to find something else. That I’ll have to do something else. I don’t know what. I don’t see myself still singing when I’m 50. But who knows? Maybe I will. I’m kind of indolent. I just let events carry me along.”
She’s been in some movies, but didn’t like acting, even though she loves film: “I don’t have a good sense as an actor. And it doesn’t really interest me… On a professional level, I mean, because apart from that it was a great experience. But seeing myself on screen wasn’t great.”
Still, she’d do it again… if she meets a director she gets along with.
Cinema, Proust, Céline, Ionesco
Because when it comes to film, it’s the directors who interest her. Antonioni and Fellini. Truffaut and Jacques Demy in France, and in Britain and America, Orson Welles, Richard Lester, Arthur Payne, and Tony Richardson.
The film that’s impressed her the most recently?
Next Time I’ll Sing for You, [a stage play] by James Saunders. She never goes to comedies, war movies or westerns “unless I’m dragged along.”
She has one theatrical god: Ionesco. “He’s very funny, but also very deep.” She likes Beckett and avant-garde theater too, but it’s “less strong.”
When it comes to literature, she names three writers: Proust, Céline, and, obviously, Ionesco. Then she adds a fourth “a bit below the others”: Henry Miller. In translation, because her English isn’t up to the task of reading the original.
From Brassens to the Everley [sic] Brothers
Françoise isn’t content to just make songs. She listens to and loves them as well.
At the top of her list is Brassens, who she puts 100 miles above everyone else. Then Gainsbourg, who she has recorded with several times, including her latest hit, “Comment te dire adieu.” Nougaro as well, and Jacques Dutronc.
She likes Bob Dylan, but because of her shaky English, doesn’t grasp everything.
She has “boundless” admiration for the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.
And then there’s Leonard Cohen, who she “doesn’t know well yet,” but whose “Suzanne” she recently recorded in a French adaptation by Graeme Allright.
She says she’s influenced by the authors and musicians she loves. “Everyone is,” she says, “but not everyone’s aware of it.” One other influence she mentions is the Everley [sic] Brothers.
What she likes about their songs is that they never go out of style. Just like Gainsbourg’s.
There’s one type of person she is drawn to a priori, even if she hasn’t met them before: those “walking encyclopedias.” People who know about everything, can talk about it at length, and are very open. “You can talk to them about any subject, they get going right away, and they know the answers to all your questions. I love that.
“I love people who won’t stop talking, if what they are talking about interests me, of course.”
Especially given that she doesn’t like to talk herself. Even though she seems to rarely show emotion, she loves enthusiastic people.
Is she influenced by her friends? “A lot,” but in the end she decides what she wants to do, when it comes to her career, her tastes, and her life.
She doesn’t get emotional often, but when she does she feels like dropping everything for the person who moved her: “Unfortunately, because we can’t start at square one again every day. There are a lot of things that interest me, but I stay on the surface, because I don’t have the drive or the courage to swing it all and say, ‘All right, I’m interested in this. Let’s go deep.’”
Baseballs at Jarry Park
She went to Jarry Park to shoot the photos that illustrate this article. On location, she obediently followed along with all the photographer’s requests.
Later, she admitted, “It was the first time I’d seen baseball players. They’re huge! In France, we’re not used to seeing men that big.”
During the pre-game workout, balls whizzed past her, flying from all directions. The people accompanying her — her agent, Lionel Roc, and her guide, Pierre David of CJMS Productions, took cover. She remained, without the slightest bit of worry. Serious.
But later, in the stands, she had fun playing the fan, an Expos cap on her head and a hot dog in her hand.
Her plans? Whatever is coming next. But she won’t necessarily do it. Her schedule is set and presented to her. She says yes or no, depending on whether or not she is confident about the proposal.
Because even though she may be mistrustful at first, she can go on to show great trust in people. Once they’ve proven themselves to her.
Thanks again, Philip and Andy. And hey, while we’re at it — let’s check out what was happening on the Montreal nightlife scene that week!
Very cool - forwarding to French friends.