Interview

Charlélie Couture, rock poet

Charlélie Couture has just released her 23rd album entitled "Not even sleep." © Jack Gavard

02/15/2019

For the release of his latest album, Even No Sleep , the singer Charlelie Couture, exiled in New York for 15 years, evokes his creative dynamism still intact, his return to Paris, ecological disasters, "yellow vests" and poetry. Meet.

RFI Music: Your record is entitled Not even sleep . Why ?
Charlélie Couture : Parisian twilight in a taxi - It's five o'clock, Paris wakes up on the car radio. This day, I thought that no image of this text was more relevant to our time. So I found it funny to write my own version. In a general way, not even sleep , the title of the album, means that I will not be buried alive, that I am a well-awakened artist, with a lot of works to create. An American poet friend once offered me this sentence that I love: " We are always at level 0. " I find his formula hyper exciting. In the United States, the present stands out as a base, a stepping stone to the future. Whereas in France, it is considered as a consequence of your past. Personally, I find that the world always takes care of you reset to 0. With each release of disc, I am as stressed as for the very first ...

You missed records?
Necessarily. There are songs, records, that I do not do it in the same way. So I forget, I move quickly to the next step. You do not rely on broken bars to climb a ladder. And then, sometimes, you're just not fitting in with the mood of the time. Your record is not missed, just badly considered. A work of art is a proposition, never an affirmation.

You have just left New York, where you lived for 15 years, to find Paris. For what reasons ?
This very evening (January 31, ed), ends the lease of my apartment in the heart of Manhattan, in which I lived for 15 years. Several reasons explain my Parisian return. Through my story, I feel more supported here: I realized 23 records, played more than 1800 concerts, wrote about twenty books ... In the USA, in fifteen years, I never managed to enter the media landscape . And then, at my age, arises a strong desire for transmission, sharing of experience. My word has more weight here. Above all, the trigger was the election of the other fool (Trump, ed), which represents all that is more abject and more flawed in humanity. There is nothing to keep in this filthy person who falls asleep in international conferences, and does not even understand what he says himself. According to a poll, he has uttered 7000 lies since his election! The USA is experiencing a real internal divide today. I do not recognize my dream America, Obama's.

Suddenly, you found Paris, and you spend two songs, Not even sleep and In Paris, I perish . How would you describe the French capital?
Paris is the kingdom of subtlety and contradictory thought. Here, we are always "the devil's advocate" ... What an expression! France has developed a great intelligence of antithesis. In the USA, you say "white" or "black". In France, there is a great taste for the ball in the center, a love of half-tones, which forges, with the existence, a poetic relation. Here reigns a culture of finesse, of the second degree. On the other hand, during my tours, I also note that the social fracture is increasing in France, that there is a real difference between the cities and the peripheries, etc.

Do you favor the movement of "yellow vests"?
In my opinion, the French give a lesson of courage to the world. Beyond the confusion of the messages, I greet those people who work all week and sacrifice their weekends to oppose the president-banker and the dysfunctions of a deeply iniquitous system.

In your record, My offspring and The hottest hours address this crucial topic of ecology ...
I always had this green sensibility. Witness the particular Song of the Little River. But for me, as I say in My descent , there is urgency. Here is one of the reasons I released this record. Three years ago, we would never have dared to speak of the end of humanity. Today, NASA places the end of the world at a few decades. It's not about me anymore, it's about my children and grandchildren ...

In what state of mind did you approach this new album, at the musical and textual levels?
A disc always escapes us. At first, it is approached with a preconceived idea, then it metamorphoses. In fine , a good song for me remains a song with which we will be able to play. We will make it evolve, exist. It does not depend on a precarious balance of a house of cards or a sophisticated production. And since I moved to New York, I've refocused on blues and jazz. For me, jazz is three points of suspension; the blues, a question mark; the song, an end point; and rock, an exclamation point. Rock is a thought of amplification, so that the message is transmitted to the greatest number.

Why do you dedicate this record to Véronique Colucci and Jacques Higelin?
The title appeared to me the day of their burials. Veronique allowed me, the little Lorraine who landed in Paris to understand the mysteries of a city that operated on other codes. I also knew Higelin at the beginning of my career. With its overflowing truculence, it has become a propellant of new ideas. At the time, we were all under the influence of Brel, Brassens or Ferré. He arrived with other creations sufficiently unfinished so that we could forge our places.

You also go out, at Castor Astral, a collection of poetry, The Mechanics of the sky . What relationship with your other creations?
For me, poetry remains the keystone of all my works - painting, music, etc. The word "poetry" comes from the Greek verb "poiein" which means "to make, to manufacture". Too often, poetry is associated with the exercise of hyper sensitive, ethereal artists, who dream in front of butterflies. Now, poetry, far from transcendental meditation, is to intervene on the world. And that's exactly what I realize when I paint paintings or when I concoct my songs.

Charlélie Couture Not even sleepy (Rue Bleue) 2019
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By: Anne-Laure Lemancel

CharlElie Couture

album - French Song - France

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