Comme bien sûr tout le monde est bilingue ici (moi la 1ère
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The Gazette (Montréal gazette)FrancoFolies 2012 :
French singer Bénabar embraces freedom and equality By Jeff Heinrich, THE GAZETTE June 7, 2012
Paris-based singer Bénabar (Bruno Nicolini) performs at Metropolis on June 8 as part of the FrancoFolies de Montréal music fest.
Paris-based singer Bénabar (Bruno Nicolini) performs at Metropolis on June 8 as part of the FrancoFolies de Montréal music fest.
Photograph by: Handout , FrancoFolies
MONTREAL - Bruno Nicolini, a.k.a. Bénabar, is a politically correct kind of guy.
And proud of it.
In fact, Politiquement correct is the title that opens his latest album, Les bénéfices du doute. Released in France last November, it’s now in stores here, just before his Friday night FrancoFolies show.
“J’aime mes parents, j’aime mes enfants, c’est bien-pensant,” the popular 43-year-old Paris songwriter sings, backed by a rootsy banjo and guitar and tambourine.
“J’aime pas la guerre ni la misère, c’est énervant,” he goes on, sounding just a bit earnest, naive, insouciant.
Then comes the defiant refrain:
“Tu trouves ça peut-être politiquement correct. Mais moi j’t’emmerde!”
In other words, if his warm-hearted values leave you cold, tough.
Defining himself against the right-wing forces of reaction in his troubled native land, Bénabar goes on to describe himself as someone who’s (I’ll translate for the benefit of the gallery):
a) “not racist, I’m human rights-ist – I don’t wear fur”;
b) anti-capital punishment (“I don’t miss the guillotine”);
c) definitely not misogynist.
Oh, and another thing: “Je trie mes ordures” – he separates his trash. How sweet.
By the end of the radio-friendly three-minute song, Bénabar manages to gently skewer Islamophobes, anti-Semites, gay bashers, dolphin hunters and anyone “who talks to the maid like she’s a dog.”
“Il faut respecter tous les gens,” the father of two concludes, “je l’enseigne à mes enfants pour qu’ils deviennent, un jour, comme je le souhaite, politiquement correct.
“Et on t’emmerde.”
Hitting the airwaves near the end of Nicolas Sarkozy’s neo-Liberal reign over France last winter, Bénabar’s song was a catchy manifesto for the kind of “liberté, égalité, fraternité” he wants for his country.
Does he feel vindicated now that, since elections in mid-May, a Socialist, François Holland, rules the land as France’s new head of state?
Not really, the artist replies with what is surely a Gallic shrug over the Skype line from his home in the Ville-Lumière.
“It doesn’t inspire me very much, at least not in my songs,” he said of the political changeover.
“I’m very interested, very involved, in politics and in what’s in the news, but it doesn’t necessarily translate into my music.”
Really? What about Politiquement correct?
“It’s just a little fit of temper, as they say – a little song that’s like a discussion you’d overhear in a bistro, where somebody gets a bit ticked off” – no more, Bénabar replied.
What about the much-reported schism in France between the right and the left, the city and the countryside, the young and the old – doesn’t that make him pessimistic for the future?
“I don’t believe the country is torn in two,” he replied optimistically. “Of course, times are tough and people are suffering – just like they are in your country, with the students,” he said, alluding to the strike.
“But I don’t think the country’s divided.
“The presidential campaign ended on what was a rather calm, rather serene note. Now we’ll see how the legislative elections go, but I don’t have the impression there’s a clash in the making.”
Since he brought it up, what does he make of our student protests?
“I prefer not to get involved with what doesn’t concern me,” Bénabar replied warily. “It’s a complex subject, after all. There’s no point saying something that might be plain stupid.”
Fair enough. He’s new to these parts – well, almost.
In 2005, he played Quebec City’s Festival d’été. But his gig Friday will mark his first time in Montreal, a city he’d like to know better, and that he hopes will get to know him better. To that end, he and his band have pulled out the stops for their 9 p.m. show at Metropolis.
“I hope it’ll be good. We’re trying to put an accent on the spectacle of the thing – it’ll be a dynamic concert, joyous, and there will be 10 of us on stage, with a horn section and two backup singers.”
So, a party, more than a time for soul-searching and contemplation?
“No contemplation, that’s for sure,” he replied. “Contemplation is not really my thing.”
One thing he can say with confidence: His lyrics aren’t just for French citizens. They can be understood and enjoyed by francophones and francophiles everywhere – even in Quebec.
“I write for everyone, not just the French,” said Bénabar, son of a librarian and film manager, who made movies and wrote TV scripts before gravitating to the music industry in the late 1990s.
With 11 albums – one live, one best-of, three movie soundtracks and six studio albums (the last two topping the sales charts in France, with more than half a million copies each) – Bénabar’s a hot property.
He’s been called a clever writer of story songs in the vein of Georges Brassens, Jacques Brel, Henri Salvador and, more contemporaneously, Renaud and Sanseverino.
Yet he seems more light-spirited than any of them, less wry, less bitter, more self-deprecating. (Even his stage name is a joke. Bénabar is “verlan” – French slang spoken backward – for Barnabé, a clown’s name he adopted as part of an early duo act; his partner went by the name Patchol.)
These days, Bénabar’s favourite French musical acts are singer Sophie Huriaux (a.k.a. La Grande Sophie), rock group Archimède, and his rocker buddy Cali, another headliner at the Francos.
(Curiously, Cali shares the same first name – Bruno – an Italian family name – Caliciuri – and is about the same age – 43. Just a nice coincidence, Bénabar said.)
Among Quebec artists, he’s enjoying the young Mascouche folksinger Amylie (Boisclair), gravel-voiced Garou and Acadian pop singer Natasha St-Pier.
On stage, Bénabar projects a clean look, performing in jacket and dress shirt with a stylish coif of light brown hair – the kind of artist you can safely take your mother to see, if she likes a little (safe) sass.
“My themes are universal: friendship, the times we live in, kids, the little details of life that may seem innocuous at first but actually carry a lot of weight,” he said. “That’s always been my preoccupation: trying to touch people and set off some kind of emotional reaction.
“That’s what I hope for in my songs.”
The 24th annual FrancoFolies de Montréal continues through June 16. Bénabar and his band perform at 9 p.m. Friday (June at Metropolis, 50 Ste. Catherine St. E. Opening act is Sophie Beaudet. Tickets are $49 in advance, $53 the day of the show. Info: francofolies.com
jheinrich@montrealgazette.com