The song remains the same: a charming release by a very young Mylene Farmer, some time before she achieved superstar status in France and some other countries. Thirty years after buying the re-release, I finally own the original single now.
My collection: 7" single no. 6952
Found: Record fair, Den Bosch, 22 April 2023
Tracks: 'Libertine' / 'Greta'
This is the last single by Mylene Farmer to be released on the 7" vinyl format. It was released to coincide with the release of the album 'Dance remixes', which was a collection of remixes of previous hits by Mylene. The track was originally recorded for a charity compilation album coordinated by Etienne Daho, which would benefit AIDS research. However, it was refused for that album, because the lyric was considered to be too ambiguous and seemed to advocate sexual intercourse without the use of a condom. Mylene did refute these claims, but in the end she recorded an acoustic version of an other track for the charity album, and this track ended up being a single.
Mylene Farmer's song 'Beyond my control' was inspired by two characters in the 1782 French novel 'Les liaisons dangereuses'. In the song, the voice heard on the chorus of the song which repeats 'It's beyond my control' is in fact a sample of John Malkovich's voice from the film 'Les liaisons dangereuses' by Stephen Frears. The song deals with self-control, love and death. Farmer tells her own story from the sampled sentence: that of a woman who kills her unfaithful lover after a night of love.
Already in 1989, Mylene Farmer said that she liked Jean-Louis Murat's songwriting. They corresponded for two years until they finally recorded the duet 'Regrets' in 1991. It is a love song in which two lovers are answering tenderly and with melancholy, while they are separated by the death of one of them. Only memories allows the one that is left behind to savour the well-being of the past relationship.
As with more songs by Mylene Farmer, 'Je t'aime mélancolie' deals with the subject of melancholy and suicide. It's the singer's ironic response to journalists who criticize her because of her image of sad singer and the great success she has with it. Originally, a different track from her album 'L'autre...' was chosen as the second single from the album: 'Pas de doute'. But in the end, this single was released instead.
Mylene Farmer released 'A quoi je sers...' ('To whom I serve...') in the summer of 1989, coinciding with her first live tour in France. It was a new song, not available on her debut album which the tour promoted. Both this song and its B-side, 'La veuve noire' were recorded fairly quickly.
The live version of 'Allan' was the first single taken from Mylene Farmer's first live album, 'En concert' (1989). The song, which originally appeared on Mylene's second album 'Ainsi soit je..', is a tribute to the American poet Edgar Allan Poe. One verse of the song contains the word 'Ligeia' which refers to the name of Poe's fairy tale published in 1837.
The lyric of Mylene Farmer's 1989 single 'Sans logique' deals with a kind of schizophrenia or dissociative identity disorder, which lives in the protagonist and makes her a killer. Very literary, the song uses obsolete words from the language of the 18th century. The calculating Marquise de Mertreuil (a character in the French epistolary novel 'Les liaisons dangereuses'), as angelic as diabolical according to her own interests, seems to be evoked in the lyrics.
The lyric of 'Tristana' was inspired by the film 'Tristana' featuring Catherine Deneuve, which tells the story of a mutilated woman. Originally, the song 'Au bout de la nuit' was scheduled to be released as Mylene Farmer's fifth single, but when the song 'Tristana' was completed, this one was preferred.
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.
Although the music video of 'Libertine' cannot be found on YouTube, I'm certain there is one. It was one of the videos that made me interested in the Canadian-born singer in the first place. When she had a hit in the Netherlands with 'Désenchantée', I started buying her records and I was glad to find 'Libertine' quite quickly.
'Plus grandir' was originally released as the second single from Mylene Farmer's debut album 'Cendres de lune' (1985). These days, that single costs a small fortune. The song deals with subjects that Farmer was especially fond of at the time : difficulty of leaving childhood, fear of aging, permanent pain of living and death. Laurent Boutonnat wrote the music, which was rather pop for such a sensitive theme. About the lyrics, Farmer said: 'Old age traumatizes me, it's what I wanted to say in the song'.
Anyone who watched music video channels regularly in the eighties would get to know Mylene Farmer at some point. Her epic music videos were shown, usually in late night programmes, because of their regular inclusion of violence and nudity. The video for 'Pourvu qu'elles soient douces' was one of them.
Not so much later, I saw the original French single. I had to admit this sleeve was a bit more daring, and since I liked the sleeve and the song, I decided to buy it on the spot. The two singles have the exact same tracklisting. The B-side is a beautiful ballad, which has quite moving lyrics. Or so I think, because my French is not so good.
'Ainsi soit je...' was the second single taken from Mylene Farmer's 1988 album of the same name. As for all her songs since the 1987 single 'Tristana', Farmer wrote the lyric. Nevertheless, the first words of the couplets 'bulle de chagrin, boule d'incertitude' were written by Marie, a singer unknown to the general public who died not long before. It was a way for Mylene to pay a tribute to her.
After I'd decided I wanted to hear more from Mylene Farmer, things went pretty fast. Thanks to record fairs, I was able to buy a lot of her early material quickly. 'Sans contrefaçon' was a song I'd seen on television thanks to its accompanying video, and I was happy to find this old single.
To people outside of France, the French music scene is somewhat of a mystery. It seems a very isolated country in this respect. Radio stations are obligated to play a percentage of French music, and because of this, French music has become very popular in France. Outside of France, no-one really cares.
