Un salut à Georges Brassens

Description

Brassens... A name that carries its flood of museumified icons... A pipe, a moustache... Papoum papoum papoum... Conversations with illusory intimacy, trapped in the box that kills ideas, that makes the libertarian as acceptable as an ideal son-in-law (...) Mortifying, isn’t it? Well no, Georges B. “is alive, and well, and living in Normandy”! For here the wild tribe of the Campagnie des musiques à ouïr awakens the beast, brings back to life the anger, the guts, the desire, the tenderness of the statued rebel. Between strangeness and familiarity, the musical arrangements blow away the dust of time and reveal the depth and irreverence of the lyrics. The singer companions are well chosen, sometimes the first surprised to have leapt, words and all, into this memory and to have found there with us an “here and now” to which no nostalgia is suited. Let us start from this truth: Brassens’s songs are universal; they are a refrain in which everyone finds themselves swept away, moved, child, elder, lover, passerby, beloved, flower, tree, bird... Les Etrangers Familiers have now been exploring, for more than a year, on stage and before packed and won-over audiences, the world of Georges Brassens. The repertoire is built around the work of Georges Brassens written and performed between 1955 and 1972. A deliberate choice, a word given by Brassens to himself but also to François Villon, Victor Hugo, Paul Fort, Jean Richepin, Antoine Pol, Francis Jammes. The songs are reinterpreted with a concern for freedom. A freedom of writing specific to the world of the Musiques à Ouïr, with the desire to bring forth something new, present, timeless. The performers are caught up in the game, yes, it is indeed about playing, playing with this era through a work of all time.