[ Interview Part I ] 

And black is also the color of the night.

That’s what I like. For a while I’ve sort of been dreading the night. It brings me nothing but insomnia; that’s not always pleasant. 

Hence nuit blanche – white night, sleepless night. 

It’s peculiar. So for me, the night is a time for thinking things over.

Nighttime has not always been about insomnia in your case.

Madness, joy, alcohol, dancing, making love, having fun, playing… Most of my life has been made of nights – nights brighter than days.

Is night your favorite day of the week? Exactly. There’s a certain impunity to it that I relish. There’s a warmth, a sweatiness, a fragrance, sometimes an odor. Night is a sensual, sexual and crazy thing. It’s a pretty intense moment in life. In the daytime, animals move about, people are restless… Days involve a sort of purposeful bustle. Nights, a useless and orgasmic one.

What were the nights like, back then?

It was really a riot. People revealed themselves openly and without shame. People talked. They told their own stories. And we loved each other very much. There was a lot of sensuality and sexuality around, at night. It was a very intense moment.

Libertine, almost?

No, not libertine at all. It was much more than that. Lives were made and unmade, you loved and you unloved, you cheated with one another…

Did all your encounters happen at night? From Boris Vian to Miles Davis?

No, the night was the reward for your day. I met Miles at a concert. I was behind the scenes with Boris’s wife. I saw Miles from the side… And I saw him from the front. This encounter was really peculiar. I used to see Boris at the Bar Vert, on Rue Jacob. I didn’t talk back then, I had a problem with speech. I listened, and people talked. Without Boris, I never would have spoken. He’s the one who gave me my speech back. I had the cheapest and the most charming of psychiatrists. We all met there, where even guys from the far-right used to come, which got me into a fight. I used to fight a lot. Used to wallop a lot of guys. When there are no words left to speak, what can you do?

So you were feared.

And fearsome.

What scared you?

Obscurantism, no doubt. People who don’t listen to others, that scares me. How can you pass judgment without hearing people out? Assholes scare me. Scare the crap out of me. Them, and snakes.

At Saint-Germain, weren’t you scared it would all come to an end?

No. That was unimaginable. When you’re 16 or 20, you’re not scared of the ending. Sometimes you choose it. Which is bad. You commit suicide, but you’re not scared of the ending. On the contrary. We thought everything was going our way, we were fighting for freedom. A purely utopian and extremely magnificent fight.

Never, in your loneliness, the lure of suicide? 

Long afterwards. Loneliness doesn’t exist, it isn’t real. My loneliness is fully peopled; there are some walls where I can see a great many people.

Later, at Saint-Germain, there was your first appearance on stage. Your first “black”, alone on-stage.

The first time was at the Boeuf sur le toit. I was wearing my black pullover, as always, and my pants. It was a gorgeous space. We had rounded up our pals to produce a surrealist play by Roger Vitrac. One of our customers was faithful, active and in love, and his name was Marlon Brando. He would drive me back to my hotel on the luggage rack of his Solex moped. 

Did that one hit on you?

Don’t think so. I didn’t dig him at all in that way. I thought he was magnificent. But there was that sort of destructive rage in his eyes. I liked him a lot. He was a good buddy. But I guess he wasn’t exactly the best catch in the world. There are some things you shouldn’t do, things that are useless. The body is useless sometimes. And I’m quite good at that. 

How do you decide?

It’s called desire. I never wanted Boris, for example. I loved him, but I never wanted him. Desire is a peculiar thing.

There was that song, “Déshabillez moi” – Undress Me. That’s your song of desire.  

It had been written for a stripper. The girl declined to sing it; she must’ve thought it was too racy. Gaby Verlor had written it. We liked each other; she came over and told me: “Listen Juliette, here’s the thing, there’s a stripper who didn’t want to sing it, would you be interested?” I listened and I said: “Undress yourself.” This turned the whole song around. It’s a different song now.

When you sing it, who do you have in mind?

Someone. Some prick sitting in front me who doesn’t get the first thing about it. Some prick I find attractive, probably; depends on the evening. He’s more or less attractive, more or less irksome, more or less beckoning to me.

Does singing a song require believing in it?

The same way an actor believes in his character. I can sing a 16-year-old girl, no problem. And an 86-year-old woman, no problem either. You believe in the character, that’s it. But that’s not me. You need to feel all the feelings. You must put yourself in the characters’ shoes. By contrast, “J’arrive”, a song that is a dialogue with death, that could be me. A song by Brel and Jouannest, the words in my mouth could be mine.

Do you prefer singing of love or death?

It’s the same. These are two very powerful feelings. Singing 26 songs, which means 26 characters, is an extremely perilous exercise. 

Still, singing of love must be even more orgasmic.

What love? What love? There are so many!

An impossible love… 

You can’t sing of that, you can’t even speak of it. I guess it must feel awful, that’s for sure. But I don’t know, I’ve never experienced that. What’s an impossible love? Being in love with Marilyn Monroe, is that an impossible love?

No, it’s being in love with a girl who’s not in love with you.

That never happened to me. I was never disappointed on that count, I’m a lucky gal. Every time I was attracted to someone, it turned out to be reciprocal. 

Are you certain you’ve experienced love?

Positive.

How was it?

Awful. Spectacular. And awful. Especially considering the guy died, and I was 19. He was a lot older than me. It may be because he died that this thing is so beautiful, but anyway it’s very, very beautiful. It’s called pure love. After that, you love differently, you love for specific reasons. You no longer love gratuitously. Loving exists.

And, once you’ve experienced love, you feel fulfilled? 

It’s rather that you feel dispossessed, once it’s gone. Youth is a moment when everything’s beautiful, everything’s in its right place. I haven’t changed much by the way. I myself believe in everything. Everything I used to believe in, I still do. Youth – you must hang on to it: it’s beauty itself. Purity of feelings. 

Why is love red?

Because blood is red. One day, my mother brought my daughter to a Chinese restaurant, and children are racist. So my daughter sees a black guy walk in with a blonde. And my daughter tells my mother: “Did you see that, Grandma, it’s weird…” And my mother says: “You see, if you cut that girl’s hand off, the blood will be red. And if you cut that guy’s hand off, the blood will be red.” My mother wasn’t a mother, but that character of hers was great.

On stage, the lights are red when you sing of love

That’s boys right there for you. What I’m saying is that love is within your heart as in a red room. When you love you feel as though there were velvet pillows in your heart, as if everything was red. But red has always been the color of revolution and protest…

Communism.

Of course.

So you feel a connection with red, undeniably? 

Yes, perhaps. I don’t think in terms of colors. Sometimes scents, fragrances. I like human warmth. I like other people’s perfume, their smell. Unless they stink. 

Love involves “making love”, it involves warmth – perhaps its being red also has to do with that. 

It involves smell as well. Love is very comforting, it feels really good. It’s like drinking a glass of water when you’re thirsty. It’s a wonderful thing, a gift. But you must pick carefully.

Is anyone fair game?

Of course. I never saw the difference between a man and a woman. Desire is not to be tamed. Why shouldn’t a man want another man? I never understood these hang-ups with bodies and booties. It’s stupid, it’s ridiculous.

Have you ever wanted a woman?

Of course. Good for me, I’m not gonna die stupid.

TV today conveys a new kind of beauty. Young girls, heavily made up, pretty exuberant.

All alike. All so dreadfully alike, as if modeled on each other. The same blondness, the same makeup, the same breasts, the same mouth, it’s appalling. It’s like some totalitarian regime: they force you to be that way. Take 25 of them, either male or female, and they’re all the same! But no one will ever force me to be anything else than what I want to be. To be attractive, you need big breasts, tall legs and your pussy must be waxed like it’s a postage stamp. What is this? Where am I? Desire lies in diversity.

Is it disgusting?

No, it’s boring. These days we’re not even moving forward, we’re moving backwards, we’re backsliding. Back to the Dark Ages.

Do you watch these girls from reality TV?

No. But when I watch songs, I see ten identical girls. It was I who invented bangs with long hair, so now when I see 25.000 of them sporting bangs with long hair… That’s not right! I was lucky enough to come into a world where there were such people as Jacques Brel, Georges Brassens, Jean Ferrat, Barbara, Léo Ferré. All of them completely different but with a sort of mutual love. Above all, some sort of complete indifference to money. We were free men and women, free spirits. Now singers are creatures that are fabricated by fashion. I actually like fashion, I love it, I think it’s great. But don’t get me wrong, not all of it – the kind Yves Saint Laurent created. 

How was that man?

Handsome and silent. Worried, curled up in the corner of the sofa. A magnificent person. The last time he ever went out was to see me – I could have done without that. He came, twice. And then he was gone. Where to, I don’t know. When they leave us, we don’t know where they’re going. They’re very ill-mannered.

But death is for everyone.

Good thing it’s not just for the happy few. It’s the only thing that’s inevitable. But it’s not fair either, not by a long shot. The way people end is very unfair. 

But dying is scary. 

No, it’s not. I’ve lived 4 or 5 lives. Perhaps even more than that. I’ve lived, lived, lived, lived… That’s all I’ve been doing. I can’t stop living. But I have to die, that’s imperative. But other people’s death is hell. The death of those you love, of your friends, it’s horrible. 

Is death black or is it white?

Death is colorless. 

So it’s sad?

It’s abominable. No return. It’s the only thing that’s simultaneously fair and unfair in formal terms. Why does this one over here die from cancer, in atrocious circumstances? Why does a forty-year-old woman die from breast cancer? Death is horrible, but it’s useful. I don’t care about dying, not at all. Anyway, it’s either death or decline. Anyway, anyway…