Maman a tort - Mylene Farmer

Mylene Farmer was born on September 12, 1961 in Pierrefonds, Quebec, Canada, a suburb of Montreal. Her parents moved from France in the late Fifties as Farmer's father pursued an engineering contract on a dam. Her family returned to France when she was eight, settling in the Parisian suburb of Ville d'Avray. In 1984, Farmer met Laurent Boutonnat, a young film student, when she replied to a newspaper ad for an actress for a small film he was working on. Farmer and Boutonnat became friends and forged a creative partnership, writing and producing the music.

Boutonnat and a young songwriter named Jérôme Dahan wrote Farmer's first hit, 'Maman a tort', which was released to much success in March 1984. The video cost the modest sum of 5000 Francs but caused a stir in the music world. Boutonnat cast Farmer as a provocative Lolita figure, an image cultivated in her early days, especially on her debut album 'Cendres de lune', which was released in April 1986.

When I collected Mylene Farmer, starting in the early Nineties, these early singles already cost a fortune. I was quite happy to shell out a much larger sum for this single, bought from a dealer who apparently did not know he could easily fetch four times as much for it.

My collection: 7" single no. 2873
Found: Record fair, Utrecht, 1997
Cost: 20 guilders
Tracks: 'Maman a tort' / 'Maman a tort (instrumental)'