I saw recently that François Hadji-Lazaro passed away in February 2023. He was and still is one of the “heroes” of my personal culture, one of those people who helped me grow through their art, ideas and passion. I have a very intimate relationship with this part of my culture because I never had anybody to share it with, although this is a deep part of who I am.
I’m aware that talking about a French artist who wrote and sang exclusively in French is an odd idea, not only because it will be hard for people who don’t speak French to relate, but also because some of those who share this kind of culture would find it disgraceful to write about it in English.1 But I like a challenge, especially when it’s about trying to make unsuspecting people discover a hidden gem of culture.
The French alternative rock scene which emerges in the 80s shares some of the traits of its international counterpart, especially its disregard for commercial success and the mainstream music industry in general. But it also has a distinctively radical nature, deeply influenced by the punk “philosophy” mixed with a strong tradition of French/European anarchism.
To understand, it’s important to know that French society tends to be conservative and heavily conformist.2 By reaction, this rigid and quite intolerant background produces its own opposite:3 a subversive counter-culture of fierce anti-authorianism and anarchism.4 This in turn regularly gives rise to awesome radical stuff like the Paris Commune in 1871, but the most visible and permanent effects of this are certainly in French arts, especially songs. Jacques Brel and Georges Brassens, two of the most popular French singers5 of all time, wrote and sang very subversive things and promoted radical ideas. This is well known, so it’s actually quite surprising that they have been accepted as symbols of French culture.6 Such are the contradictions of the French society… and of many other societies, I’m sure.
This solid tradition of rebellious French songs, as well as a real political awareness for many of them, contributed to the emergence of a very naughty alternative rock scene in France. There was a spectacular burst of energy, some insane creativity and it was also one of the first time that some proudly multicultural combinations of genres and people would make a splash. To me, this was partly a practical expression of this underlying libertarian7 current that I mentioned.8
François Hadji-Lazaro was right in the middle of this: talented musician, politicized, and very Parisian. He was active in multiple bands, the most well known being Pigalle (the area in Paris) and Les Garçons Bouchers (The butcher boys). He was also a member of Los Carayos, a collective of the alt rock scene in which Manu Chao, him and a few others developped their playful musical creativity. Manu Chao would later become famous with his band La Mano Negra, the best rock band of the universe of all time.9 François also co-founded Boucherie Productions, the independent label that successfully disseminated most of the French alternative rock scene.10
His songs would typically marry his subtle musical talent and taste for instruments with the brutal energy of punk rock. All of this served with beautifully written lyrics, like in Dans la Salle du Bar-Tabac de la Rue des Martyrs, which tells the too human stories of the drunks, junkies and prostitutes who hang out in this worn bar. The mechanically sad sound of the barrel organ and François’ soulful weathered voice elevate the brutal realism of the descriptions to poetry. I also really like L’Histoire Mélodramatique De Momo, Farid Et Du Grand, the poignant story of three poor youths who attempt a heist with their toy guns and a crap stolen car (spoiler: it doesn’t end well for them).11 Naturally he also wrote and sang many festive songs, like this hilarious parody of the lambada, a huge “fuck you” to the mainstream music business.
It’s very hard for me to convey the feeling that this music meant to me, and I have mixed feelings about this text. It certainly cannot touch you in the way it touches me, because there’s a whole different context: different time, different references, different words, different people… Even among people who would have had more or less the same cultural environment as me, not so many would share the feeeling. And this is fine: this French alt rock scene was a wave which came and went, like everything in life. Same thing for my attachment to it, which can only live as long as I do. We often try to hang onto the stuff which matters to us, we try to protect it against time. We do the same with people we love: we hardly accept that people can change, leave, and sometimes die. The beauty of a culture, an idea, a feeling or a person lies in the fact that they are a living thing.
I’m sure that everywhere in the world, all the time, there are some other fascinating cultural things which happen and become a big part of some people’s lives. See the contrast between this kind of alive feeling which is cultural by nature, and the various inert symbols that we are asked to consider as sacred: country, religion, business, fashion, any kind of norm… Humans invent sacred stuff to protect themselves against time, but this is an illusion. Life is for the living beings.
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For some people in this culture, English is the imperialist language of business and international standardization which threatens cultural diversity in general. This is largely true, but I’m crazy enough to think that we could share pieces of our own cultural diversity through English, that is not only defending against “invaders” but converting the “invaders” by showing them all the beauty which exists outside their bland homogeneous cultural world. (I’m not sure if I’m clear but I need to stop diverging from my main idea all the time). ↩︎
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Pretty sure most French people would vehemently disagree, of course. To be fair, I suspect that most societies tend to become conformist when they solidify. Still, I suspect that there is a specifically French tendency to unconsciously expect a certain kind of norm to be followed. ↩︎
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For the sake of poetry, one could add that this is akin to beautiful flowers growing on shit. ↩︎
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By the way, this also explains the typical French culture of conflict and protesting, to some extent. ↩︎
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Naturally I use “French” liberally in the sense of related to French culture, not nationality. Jacques Brel was Belgian, of course. ↩︎
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My interpretation is that, once again, people perceive only what they want. A lot of people just pretend not to hear the fierce anarchist messages in the songs, or choose to understand them as something not serious. ↩︎
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In the European and original sense of libertarian, obviously. Nothing to do with this idiotic right-wing libertarianism. Sadly the word libertarian has now been hijacked by these morons, so it’s important for me to dissipate any possible confusion (also you may or may not have noticed that I usually try to avoid judging or insulting anybody, but right-wing libertarianism is worth an exception to my rule). ↩︎
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Around the same time Carte de Séjour, a rock band made of descendants of Arab immigrants, was also bringing a much needed refreshing of social norms in France through their music. Their cover of “Douce France”, an old Charles Trenet’s song promoting a traditional version of France through a list of childhood memories, was such a great and subversive idea: their reinterpretation of the song was like reversed cultural appropriation. As members of a minority comfortable with their identity, they made their own the nostalgic memories in the song, and by extension this symbol of French identity. To me, there is a special bittersweet irony in this song that I associate with Rachid Taha’s personal style; a brilliant musician, he later continued his musical adventures solo and died in 2018. ↩︎
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Normally I don’t like this kind of arrogant claim of superiority. But after all, the people who regularly pretend to rank musicians or bands don’t seem to realize that they don’t know everything, in particular that they are usually limited to the musical ecosystem of English-speaking countries (and they don’t even mention it, like good old arrogant imperialists). So I think it’s fair to say that we can all do the same thing: whatever you like, you can say that it’s undoubtfully the best of the universe of all time. ↩︎
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This is not a minor feat, because libertarian movements are often full of energy in the here and now, but rarely bother with the mundane requirements of logistics. ↩︎
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This song joins a long tradition of anarchist songs showing petty criminals as the true victims and the society blaming them as a cruel monster: Brassens’ l’Auvergnat, Renaud’s le loubard or le P’tit voleur… There are probably many others that I don’t know or forgot. ↩︎