The Ultimate MICHEL POLNAREFF Tribute
By Amanda Hallay
Sous Quelle Étoile Suis-Je Né? So asked French singer-songwriter Michel Polnareff in his 1968 hit, and indeed, it was a question worth asking. Just what star could the weird and wonderful Polnareff have been born under? It is one not recognisable in our solar system, that’s for sure.
Michel, my belle.
Fame first found Michel in the mid-Sixties, when the nineteen year old student was discovered busking outside Sacre Cœur. A gifted pianist, Polnareff had learnt three guitar chords (E, A and C) and written a little ditty around them to give him something to sing whilst busking. The song he wrote was called La Poupee Qui Fait Non (‘The Doll That Says No’), and it not only captured the jangling folk-rock spirit of the Byrds, but also the interest of a passing record exec, who instead of throwing a couple of francs into Polnareff’s guitar case, threw him a recording contract. The stuff of legend, and it happens to be absolutely true.
Once in the studio, Michel Polnareff was able to let his musical talents run wild, producing a string
of albums and classic singles which sounded like absolutely nothing France had heard before. Polnareff
consumed pop culture. From the high psychedelic pop of Le Roi des Fourmis to the haunting Holidays,
he soon became the darling of the Sixties Sorbonne crowd, a very young man whose music was the perfect
soundtrack to the student revolution of 1968. The early Seventies found Polnareff turning from pure pop
to politics, his Letter to France a biting tribute to the nation he loved, yet who he felt had
betrayed him. Sensation seeking, the very straight Polnareff took to wearing dresses, the obvious result
being a nation-wide questioning of his sexuality. His marvellous sense of humour found him responding
with the plaintive Je Suis Un Homme, playfully reassuring us that; ‘Au lit mon style, correspond
bien á mon état civil’ (rough translation: ‘In bed, my style corresponds correctly to
what’s on my I.D’.) Worrying scandal hit Polnareff when concert posters showed him pulling up his skirt
to show his very nice bare bum, landing him in court on obscenity charges and bankrupted by his fine.
This wasn’t the only time he landed in ‘eau chaud’; his mid-Seventies anthem, On Ira Tous Au Paradis
– Même Moi (‘We’re all going to heaven – even me’) raised eye-brows and much complaint in religious
circles, Polnareff’s insistence that ‘touts les saints et les assassins’ would be going ‘up’ thought
heretical.
Headlines notwithstanding, Polnareff’s music saw him through the roughest of scandals, the highest compliment coming from none other than the legendary Serge Gainsbourg:‘That kid’s got me beat.’
Colourful
and controversial though he was, Polnareff was hiding a troubling secret behind his iconic white-framed
sunglasses; the singer had been slowly going blind since childhood, and had justifiable terror that he
would eventually lose his sight completely. Swindled from the start by his manager and always ‘in trouble’
with either the French government or religious fanatics, Polnareff finally had enough and moved to America.
Nothing more was seen of him until he bizarrely reappeared in the mid-‘80s. Checking into a Paris hotel,
he stayed there for three years, forays to the hotel bar the only time the increasingly blind Polnareff
left his room. Little did anyone know that he was ‘gearing himself up’ for a major eye operation which
would either save his sight or render him absolutely blind. Happily, the operation was successful, and
Polnareff returned to America with such a light heart that he even gave a min-‘90s concert at The Roxy
in L.A.
A true ‘Californian’, the waifish young boy who stood with his guitar outside of Sacre Cœur is now a fitness fanatic; daily ‘body pumping’ has the ethereal folk-rock singer into a tanned, middle-aged Adonis. He collects snakes and lizards, and is married to an All-American beauty half his age. More Halliday than Holidays, today’s Polnareff bares little resemblance to the philosophical lad who wanted a ‘doll that said yes’. His music, however, is timeless, and a recent tribute album found the likes of Marc Almond and Pulp stylishly revamping the Polnareff ‘classics’.
One of the two genuinely 'cool'
people France has ever produced.
I only discovered Michel Polnareff two years ago, quite by chance, on a French ‘oldies’ station. The usual bilge was interrupted by a wonderful, wonderful song. ‘Who’s that by?’ I asked Pierre (who knows everything – or thinks he does.) ‘I think that’s Michel Polnareff’, he answered. The following day, the same thing happened with another fabulous song. ‘Who’s that by?’ I demanded. ‘I think that’s Michel Polnareff’. When it happened for a third time, Pierre said; ‘Mmmmm. I think you might be a Michel Polnareff fan’, and I duly went out and bought his Greatest Hits. Pierre was right. I was a fan, and have been ever since. It actually scares me to think that I might have gone through life without knowing the music of this weird, wonderful and utterly original man.
This poupee says ‘oui’!
Polnareff’s back catalogue, as well as recent ‘greatest hits’ compilations, can be found on Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.fr, and he has his own website at www.polnaweb.com.
If you want to download a Polnareff ‘taster’, I recommend the following tracks;
Sous Quelle Étoile Suis-Je Né?
Holidays
Le Roi des Fourmis
La Poupée Qui Fait Non
Dans La Maison Vide
La Mouche
L’Amour Avec Toi
