The title “Goodbye my Love Goodbye” gave rise to speculation as to whether the Best Of tour, with which the Frenchwoman is celebrating her 60-year career, might be her last. Not really, she asserts in an interview with the German Press Agency. She will only do short guest tours and visit fewer cities: “But I won’t do any longer tours.”
A decision that has to do with her age. But not only: “I also want to slow down the pace so that I have more time for myself and for creative projects.” Like composing, for example.
Germany is the first stop in Europe
Germany is the first stop on the international anniversary tour in Europe. In order to persevere, she shows a discipline that she compares to that of high-performance athletes: lots of sleep, a healthy diet and daily singing and breathing exercises. A program that she also sets for herself at home in Paris. With a few exceptions, as she charmingly admits. Like a glass of champagne, for example.
The singer with the distinctive pageboy head has a very special relationship with Germany. “I feel welcome and the audience appreciates me.” As she points out, German was also the first foreign language in which she sang. That was in 1969 with “Behind the Scenes of Paris”. Other hits followed such as “The Paris Tango”, “Behind the Scenes of Paris”, “Acropolis Adieu” and “All of Paris is a Theater”.
She also has numerous unforgettable memories of Germany. These include her appearances with Peter Alexander, with whom she released “Good-Bye my Love” in 1984. In 2006 she released the song in a duet with Florian Silbereisen, with whom she said she had a “wonderful friendship”.
Memory of mother
For the first time in Germany she will sing the song “Maman, tu es la plus belle du monde” (Mama, you are the most beautiful in the world), which is dedicated to her mother, who died in 2016.
As she said, her mother was her biggest fan and regularly accompanied her on her tours. “My mother really enjoyed coming to Germany.” Performing the song for the first time in Germany will be full of emotions for her.
“People only talk about drones and missiles”
After Germany, the pop star goes on to Prague and the Slovakian capital Bratislava. Her major tours once included Russia on the program, a country in which she has not performed since the war and whose country and people she likes. Her fans there include Russian President Vladimir Putin; in 2008 she sang in front of him in the Great Hall of the Kremlin Palace.
What do you think about Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine? She is an artist, not a politician: “Nobody talks about peace, you only hear the word war. People only talk about drones and missiles.” What she found very hard at the beginning were the sanctions against Russian artists. “But neither you nor I are in a position to change anything.”
One can only wish for peace on earth, which she conjures up in “Mille Colombes”. A song that she also interpreted in German in 1977 under the title “Take the guitar again”.
