A completely new duet between Jacques Dutronc and Françoise Hardy! It was rehearsed, not without difficulty, and filmed in 1965 for the first broadcast of Dim Dam Dom. For reasons never clarified, it was not broadcast. Madelen invites you to discover, for the first time, images where the two artists evoke, in words and music, the birth of their couple, a love story that the newspapers do not yet talk about. The singer of All the boys and the girls displays a smile that she has not often shown in her songs. She owes it to the passion she then felt for the man who seduced her with laughter, and who could have chosen “quiet farce” as his motto. In the 60s, Dutronc never missed an opportunity to indulge in jokes, not always in good taste, with the complicity of his friends, starting with Kalafate, his guitarist, present on this excerpt at the right of Françoise. One of the latter’s favorite pranks consisted of playing the very particular secretary. He accompanied Dutronc in the radio studios and on television sets, disguised as a prehistoric man, with a club as a weapon. His mission, which he accomplished with the greatest seriousness, was to carefully preserve a bag containing party favors, streamers and explosive cigarettes, which Jacques never failed to use during a broadcast.

Also read: Jacques Dutronc: “Everything has been said about me. Right-wing Anar, I like that”

“I failed my Baccalaureate, but I passed my friends,” said Dutronc who, from time to time, nevertheless cultivated a taste for solitude. He had thus found a way of never being disturbed by unwelcome people. At the beginning of the 1960s, when he lived in a studio above his parents’ apartment on rue de Clichy, he recorded the following message on his telephone answering machine: “there are no subscribers to the number you requested!”. This discouraged those who were unaware of this subterfuge.

His career also started as a hoax. The day after his 20th birthday, he began to earn his living in recording studios, accompanying young artists on the guitar, including Eddy Mitchell, Gene Vincent and Vince Taylor. Spotted by Jacques Wolfsohn, artistic director of Vogue records, he was hired to, among other things, write music intended for headliners of the emerging hit parade, Benjamin, Zouzou la twisteuse and… Françoise Hardy, for whom he signed precisely The time of love. One day he had lunch with Jacques Lanzmann, novelist and journalist. He has just taken over the management of Lui, a “quality monthly French charm magazine”, which some do not fail to compare to Play-Boy. Jacques Wolfsohn is also present at the table. After a familiar exchange of jokes, the three men begin to discuss the art of writing and composing a song. “Some say it’s very difficult,” assures Lanzmann. I do not agree ! I claim it’s very easy! “.

Wolfsohn then launches a challenge to the two guests: Lanzmann will compose, in a few moments, a text that Dutronc will immediately put to music. Then he will record the song. This is how couplets are born evoking an average French person who questions the issues of his time. The title Et moi et moi et moi was immediately acclaimed by adults, but also by children, seduced by a freedom of tone to which they are hardly accustomed. It became the hit of the summer of 1966. Dutronc, who considered this adventure as yet another hoax, did not hide his surprise. However, he is unaware that he is at the dawn of a career that he will paradoxically pursue with the greatest seriousness.