Album review
Art Mengo
Living The Good Life.
Paris
24/10/2003 -
RFI Musique: Would you really describe a singer-songwriter's lifestyle as living the good life ?Art Mengo: Well, the five years I put into making this album were definitely the good life! For once in my career I managed to make an album without realising it. And I say that as someone who's just come out of a ten-year contract with Sony where you're caught up in this mad whirlwind of putting out a new album every two years. To begin with you're really happy making that many albums but then you get to a point where you burn out. The music profession is a profession where it's difficult to cheat, you know. One day you reach saturation point - and that's exactly what happened to me! I even got to the point where I started thinking about giving up my recording career altogether. That wouldn't have been such a big risk, either, because I could have gone on writing material for other people.
What happened with the new album was I set up my studio in the comfort of my own home. And let me tell you it's a big luxury to be able to go to work in slippers! I wasn't under contract to anyone any more so I wasn't working under any kind of pressure. I was able to work exactly how I wanted with whomever I wanted. That's why I ended up calling the album La vie de château (Living The Good Life). This is a compilation of the best songs I've made in five years, working in the peace and comfort of my own home.
Not all the songs on your new album were intended for your own use, were they ?
That's true. There were a few songs that got re-routed along the way. Je passerai la main was a song I originally wrote for Luz Casal, but she didn't want it. I thought it was a pity to let it go to waste and ended up recording it myself. As for L'enterrement de la lune, that was a song originally intended for Juliette Gréco. It got to a point where I realised that what with these songs I'd recuperated from other people and the songs I'd written for myself I'd actually got an album I could take to a record company.
But why all this writing songs for other people? Wasn't there ever a moment when you wanted to make your own career a priority?
Perhaps you reach a point where your songs get more attention when they're performed by other singers than they do when you sing them yourself… To be honest, if I'd been someone who sells a huge amount of records I'd have done more songs myself. But I know that when I write a song for someone like Florent Pagny and it becomes a single it’ll get a lot more attention than it ever would have on one of my albums. I do a couple of bossa novas, give them to Henri Salvador and wham! bam! a million copies sold in the stores!… Somewhere down the line the aim is to share my music with the greatest possible number of people – and I realise I’m not always the best vehicle for my songs! Personally, what gives me a real buzz as a singer is to get up there and perform live on stage.
OK, but you don't get to perform live on stage without selling records…
Well, let's just say I've been lucky enough to attract a core following of fans over the years and that allows me to go on doing live shows. But I know my songs will never be huge hits for me the way they are for other people… I've just turned forty so I've got to the point where I can sit back and analyse things now. And I admit it's a bit frustrating to think "OK, if you give this song to someone else it'll do better than if you sing it yourself!" And I admit that irks me from time to time.
But it's a question of personality, you know. Very early on in the game I refused to do a lot of things I was asked to. I avoided TV shows and stuff and limited promotional work to the absolute minimum. That was my form of rebellion, I guess, never being there - and maybe I'm paying the price for that now! But I have to say I didn't waste any time in achieving my main aim and that was to make a living from my music. It sounds a bit stupid to say so, but I think I honestly could have got by just playing piano bars. I'd have been perfectly happy with that!
There's a song on your new album called Monsieur Claude ?
I've always been a big fan of Claude Nougaro. It was listening to him that I realised singing in French didn't have to sound old and fuddy-duddy. It was Nougaro who got me into listening to people like Dave Brubeck and Thelonius Monk… I've always been a bit in awe of Nougaro really. But I didn't want to do a "tribute" to him on the album. I thought that would be a bit pompous. So I just did this sort of little nod to him, you know, from one singer to another. You don't dare come straight out and say, "Wow! I think you're absolutely wonderful!"… It's all a bit tricky really. Nougaro doesn't know that as a 16-year-old kid I ran up and accosted him in the street in Toulouse one day with a friend. We ran over and begged him for an autograph – a thing I've got an absolute horror of doing!!! Nougaro's one of the rare singers to whom I simply felt like saying, "It’s you who made me want to do this!"
It's a bit surprising seeing as you've written so many songs for other people that you've never written anything for Nougaro?That's down to modesty. Also, when you idolise someone, you don't want to get too close. If you ever got to touch them their special aura might rub off. Besides, Nougaro tends to work in Paris a lot. And I've always more or less stuck to my Toulousan way of working.
What for a songwriter like yourself makes a song particularly moving or relevant?
The idea behind the lyrics. I think on a song like Je passerai la main just that little phrase "I'll pass on that" conjures up three or four completely different ideas… And I love the image on L'enterrement de la lune (The Burial of the Moon) where the moon descends into the earth. On Le temps perdu (Lost Time) there's the idea of not having meant someone at the right moment in your life.
With me a song always germinates with an idea that I want to set to music. And it has to be a strong idea because I'm one of those rare songwriters who starts with the lyrics and builds music up from there. I can't work the other way round. It's not that I haven't tried but I've always been horribly disappointed with the result. Working from the lyrics it can happen that you appreciate what you thought was a mediocre song just by setting certain passages to music. The music sheds new light on it.
What do you think about the lyrics of new-wave singer-songwriters such as Bénabar, Vincent Delerm, Matthieu Boogaerts and M?
Well, I can't say I'm familiar with all of them, but I tend to find that musically speaking they leave you wanting something more. The lyrics are great. They can be a bit anecdotal sometimes but I kind of like that. But on a musical level it doesn't really work for me at all. I think with someone like Delerm there are some real ideas behind the lyrics but musically his songs are pretty poor. As for Bénabar, his arrangements are great, a lot of work has gone into them… But the melodies never really grab me. I'm not saying his stuff's bad, not at all, and I understand why people like it, but from a musical point of view it just doesn't grab me. M's different, though. I think his music's very rich and I love his crazy off-the-wall side!
Interview: Frédéric Garat
Art Mengo / La vie de château (Polydor)
