The greatest album of all time is without any question Françoise Hardy’s sensuously sublime La Question. Recorded in 1971, the album marked a departure for her. From Viens at the beginning to Reve at the end, it is a sumptuous, spell-binding delight.
Having said that, I do remember being profoundly disappointed and disoriented when I first heard it. The opening track Viens didn’t sound right. I thought the vocals and the music to be out of kilter. The songs lacked the usual simplicity. Le Martien and Chanson d’O were plain weird. It didn’t sound like anything of her usual style and sound. I distinctly remember when the album finished thinking ‘well, OK, everyone is allowed a bad album.’ That eccentric verdict can only be explained by the fact I am a creature of habit who needs time to adjust to shocks and surprises. I only needed to play it again to begin the process of readjustment. It didn’t take long for the magic to work.
Songs of love, longing, heartbreak, and desire, exuding a sensual melancholy throughout. That kind of thing. In Politics as a Vocation, Max Weber recommended “mystic flight from reality for those who are gifted for it.” I see it more as an immersion in true reality. I quote: ‘La Question is an album for those in love; for those who yearn for love, and for those scorned by it. It soundtracks the nuances of romance, and enraptures those who can relate to its message.’
In fact, La Question the song was the very first thing I heard by Françoise Hardy. I remember the moment well. I was having a rest lying on the bed listening to that fine musicologist from Wigan Stuart Maconie on BBC Radio 2. A feature of his show was The Critical List, in which Maconie would present a featured artist and album which every discerning record collector should have in their collection. From the opening line of the song I was hooked. I sat straight up and came to the edge of the bed. My first thought was a prayer that this song carried on being as good as it sounded. Many times songs have caught my ear only to fade away disappointingly. This song not only carried on, it got better and better. I was transfixed. Inveterate worrier that I am, my thoughts then turned to the reception, hoping and praying that the signal wouldn’t be lost. Reassured, I started to pray that Maconie would actually give the singer’s name at the end. Many times, DJ’s play songs and go straight into inane chat without telling us anything about the record they had played. Being The Critical List, we got chapter and verse. The singer was Françoise Hardy. I had never heard of her. Whoever she was, she was singing my song. It was evening, so the shops were closed. I went out first light the next day to see if I could find anything by her in the local record shop. I found the one album, which I snapped up. It contained tracks such as Il N'y a Pas D'amour Heureux, Mon Amie La Rose, L'amitie, La Maison Ou J'ai Grandi, Le Temps De L'amour, Il Est Des Choses, Voila, Le Premier Bonheur Du Jour, Comme, and All Over the World, which I learned was a UK top twenty smash hit the year I was born. I needed to check that this Françoise was as good as she had sounded before taking the plunge. In truth, had she been merely as quarter as good, I would still have dove eagerly in. She was as good as she had sounded. So the next day I made my way to Liverpool in search of more. I found the Star album and more gems. And so it continued. Hear one great Françoise track and you want it all.
As for La Question, for sound, texture, atmosphere, and lyrical beauty, this album beats everything hands down.
Take this line from “Mer.”
“I would love to fall asleep in the sea—magical, original, in its essential rhythm. I would love the sea to take me back to be reborn—elsewhere than inside my head, somewhere other than the earth, where without my love I can do nothing.”
Je voudrais doucement me coucher
dans la mer
magique, originelle
dans son rhythme essentiel
Je voudrais que la mer
me reprenne pour renaître
ailleurs que dans ma tête
ailleurs que sur la terre
où sans mon amour
Je ne peux rien faire
As beautiful as those words are in print, they become sublime when sung by the ethereal Françoise.
"Doigts" may be the most sensual song of all, dealing with the art of touch as teaching and learning simultaneously in relation to the other, soliciting response and reciprocity in return. A kind of "reciprocal transubstantiation," I would say, each bodying forth in, with, and through the other.
I’m not quite sure what I’m saying any more, so I shall end by saying simply that every song on this album is a gem.
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