Carla Bruni's new pot song

 

Carla Bruni, the Italian model and singer, has not put a foot wrong since she married Nicolas Sarkozy last February. Her new demure, regal style has all but effaced the sulphurous she-cat image that she cultivated in her previous existence. Her presence has helped toned down the brash, over-excited side of  the French president.  On their London trip in March, the British media melted before her in adoration.

Bruni's first solo act as first lady is coming up with the release of her new album on July 21. It's called "Comme si de rien n'était" (As if nothing happened). One of the tracks is a love song called "Ma Came", which translates as my dope, or my junk.

The only line that has emerged so far goes: “My guy, I roll him up and smoke him."  The Elysée Palace is said to be worried that the song, with its drug slang, is unseemly for a première dame.  Sarko's people are putting it around that Monsieur le Président is not the guy in the song and that Bruni, whose past conquests included well-known rock stars, wrote it long before she met him.

I suspect that the song will upset upset very few people. France is not yet such a slave to political correctness as the "Anglo-Saxon" nations. Naive records, Bruni's label, can be certain that her new global celebrity will relaunch her wobbly singing career. This began in 2002 with a successful debut called Quelqu’un m’a dit (Someone Told Me). The album, sung in a strange breathy whisper,  has sold two million copies. No Promises, her second, released in early 2007, has been a relative disappointment. It sold only 80,000 until her new celebrity tripled its sales.

In the new album, Bruni sings her own material in French, Italian and English, as well as songs by Bob Dylan (You belong to me) and Michel Houellebecq, the French shock novelist. She will be guaranteed a world-wide market this time, but she will not be keeping the money. The earnings are to go to charity. She has also given up plans for a concert tour, which was not deemed suitable for France's royal consort. She is, however, shooting a couple of video clips and planning an appearance on Vivement Dimanche, a television talk show so safe that Bernadette Chirac, the last president's wife, used to be a regular.

Bruni, 40, a woman who said two years ago that she could never be monogamous, has surprised many by the ease with which she has adopted the role of official spouse. Yazmina Reza, the playright who wrote a fly-on-the-wall book on Sarko's campaign, told the New Yorker during a US promotion tour the other day that she was very different from Cécilia Sarkozy, the wife who bolted the Elysée last October after five months there.

"The crucial difference is this: Carla Bruni is a girl who wants to be there. Cécilia made it plain that she was profoundly unhappy to be there. Carla is happy to be there, to be seen, to be with him, to play a role.

Sarko issued his own marital progress report in an aside to Paris Match magazine when it devoted 14 pages of  fluff  and glossy pictures to the romantic idyll at the Elysée. 'Some predicted that Carla would destroy me but she hasn't,' said the President. 'She has not completely changed me either.'

Comments

[Ian]

It's a metaphor. Get over it.

[dot king]

"It's a metaphor. Get over it."
(Ian)

Oh, so it is - I thought it was a typo! Silly me!

[Ali G]

She's well fit

[azloon]

['Some predicted that Carla would destroy me but she hasn't] NS

this guy really doesn' have a clue, does he?

he thinks he's 'home clear' because she hasn't destroyed him yet?

it's no wonder this guy has such a bad track record in marriage.

he won't know what hit him when it happens (if it happens). no wonder he was texting Ceci on the eve of his marriage.

and with 35% favorable poll ratings, how can he be so sure of anything?

i think we should consider a new nickname for sarko: super-doobie (google if you must).

[Joan Arles]

You are being kind calling her a singer, Charles .... She sort of hums and mumbles, in a very picturesque way of course.

[Isa]

The NO PROMISES album is quite good,in fact:it's 19th century poems (in English) by people like Emily Dickinson Auden,Yeats...whispered rather than sung but very nice & literary.

[dot king]

"'She has not completely changed me either.'" Nicolas Sarkozy on Carla Bruni-Sarkozy d'après Charles Bremner.

But what has she compromised?
In order to make him "look better" she has faded into the shadows and on the odd occasion she comes out, she looks more like his governess than his wife - but then, hey, whatever turns you on :)

[Daisy]

'Some predicted that Carla would destroy me but she hasn't,' said the President. 'She has not completely changed me either.'

Then again, she doesn't live with him, either.

[rocket]

Charles

Bruni, 40, a woman who said two years ago that she could never be monogamous,...

Who says she is! It may all be part of the marriage contract. In any case, if the elysee didn't want us to know than we wouldn't know AND NO PAPER WOULD DARE PRINT IT;

http://tinyurl.com/3gwpue

Shades of Mitterrand Batman!

PS - The woman can't sing anyway, but being the First lady of France should help her sell a few albums and guarantee when she gets out of this marriage after Sarkozy leaves office she will be able to sell a few albums and pocket a little money. Can't carry a tune as most French. They're tone deaf. Their range doesn't get beyond 2500 HZ while the Brits get up to over 12000HZ. May ce n'est pas de leur faute. c'est la nature! (smile)

[isobel]

"Can't carry a tune as most French. They're tone deaf. Their range doesn't get beyond 2500 HZ while the Brits get up to over 12000HZ. .."Rocket.
I'd like to know more about this Rocket - (not the fact that the French are tone deaf I can experience that by switching on one of the "popular" music channels) but that the range of the language only goes up to 2500 HZ. You mentioned this before I seem to recall, and it made me think that maybe that was why I was having so many problems understanding what the French were saying (better now but it's been a struggle).Despite never spending any great length of time in Italy I've never experienced the problems I've had with understanding French - there's nothing to "grab hold of" as there is with Italian. Do you have any more information on the subject?

[Fernandez]

"as well as songs by Bob Dylan (You belong to me)"

The song is from 1952 by Jo Stafford. Bob Dylan just did a cover of it for the film 'Natural Born Killers'.

Whenever Carla's career needs a boost, she finds a sucker to help her along. She used Clapton to get to Jagger. When Jagger dumped Jeri Hall for her, she became a 'supermodel'. When she wanted a baby, she grabbed Raphael. When the singing career dried up and 40 was on the horizon, she married Sarko and now she's on the cover of Paris Match every week. Viola, a reinvented Carla and a third album.

Like her sister said, Carla gets what she wants.

[Marguerite.]

Je ne sais pas si elle chante bien -je n'ai jamais ecoute ses chansons- mais elle a de la chance d'avoir un "metier" a elle. Cela lui evitera de se consacrer aux bonnes oeuvres qui sont le lot de toutes les femmes de President et assimilees. Elle pourra "faire du bien" en chantant. Ce sera elle qui aura choisi son "style" de premiere dame de France.

[Pierrotlalune]

Reading your posts, I often wonder why you seem to analyse so much the presidential networks as if they were a royal family. We don't give so much importance to the life of the "cour".

We, as french, do care more and more, in a tabloïdic way, it's true. However, we don't gossip over the presidential couple as a serious english newspaper would do.

It's not an accusation in anyway, just a wonder dropping by, as I read your posts (with great pleasure) almost everyday.

[sebastien]

Isobel:
As far as comprehension and pronunciation are concerned, the biggest problem that English speakers have with French, and French speakers with English, comes from the fact that French is a syllable-timed language (spoken with every syllable stressed pretty much the same) while English is a stress-timed language (spoken by skipping from stressed syllable to stressed syllable). For instance, the phrase "Paris Symphony Orchestra" contains three stressed syllables: Pa, Sym and Or. In the phrase "Orchestre symphonique de Paris", all the syllables receive virtually identical stress. Which is why French, like Spanish, sounds so staccato to Anglos, while to untrained French ears English can sound like the mumblings of a drunkard.
The fact that the frequency range of French goes up to about 2000 herz , while English starts at about 2000 herz, is a secondary point, and mainly relevant to the pronunciation of vowels. Incidentally, tone deafness (a genetic impairment) does not afflict entire populations; long lists of French opera singers, tuneful traditional songs and classical composers would seem to bear that out where France is concerned. Singing and speaking aren't even handled by the same part of the brain:
http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1460879018?bctid=1556691972

[valerie]

To be fair, why not actually go to youtube and find Bruni's video for 'Quelqu'un m'a dit' and listen to it. It's not half-bad and the melody stays with you and I don't mean that in a bad way. Like that idiotic Tonday chocolate rain horror a few months back.

French popular music, even Italian popular music has many examples of singers of little voice. She sings in tune and if you think you can perform the above-mentioned song with as much ease as she does while playing the guitar, then, please video it and show us your chops.

And, no, I am no fan of Bruni's, past or present, but I am a Libra and a musician and all this condemnation of her music for the sake of being negative about her is unfair. Period.

I can think of worse voices and songs to listen to. Vanessa Paradis for one. And I've never understood the draw of someone like France Gall, whose voice is so uninteresting. I saw Coluche sing 'Si Maman Si' with Michel Berger on French TV once and I was in tears and the memory of it still haunts me years later. And Coluche was no singer.

I suspect Bruni is a much more accomplished musician than some. She is no Callas but then she doesn't need to be one.

[qwerty]

thanks Sébastien - very interesting. It explains why it seems to be so difficult to put French lyrics tto music. French is monochord. Hence the popularity of rap, slam, "chansons à texte" where the music doesn't count. (And which bore me to listen to).
Ever listen to "c'est la mer qui prend l'homme, c'est pas l'homme qui prend la mer"? Very monotonous. Text is s**t as well.

[sebastien]

Qwerty:
Absolutely: once you start singing French, especially to an Anglo-pop beat, you have to start stressing particular syllables, which is not the natural pattern of the spoken language. But it doesn't mean that it can't be sung very nicely, perhaps to more appropriate music.
To be fair, the words of "c'est pas l'homme qui prend la mer" are tongue in cheek. "Moi la mer elle m'a pris, Je m' souviens un vendredi," "La mer c'est dégueulasse, Les poissons baisent dedans," incorrectly conjugated verbs etc. It's a joke (humour français, 'ow you say, very impenetrable for ze foreigners).

[Nathalie]

Never mind about the singing but what's with the ludicrous cover?

[rocket]

Are those prophylactics strewn about the floor in front of her on the album cover?

And what's that in her bag. It looks like a baggie with some time of herbs inside.

[Léo]

"Can't carry a tune as most French. They're tone deaf."

Rocket, I love it.
I happen to be French and am tone deaf. Fairly recent situation, I must confess. Due to aging. In doctors' lingo, it's called presbacousie (sp?).
So I bought very expensive invisible gadgets which help me understand what others say. But after a year they broke down and thanks to legendary Franch business customer service I have been left without them for several weeks. And you know what? I can't understand what the missus tells me. I guess her tonal range must be above 2500 hz. And she is French. Go figure.

You know what? Nathalie Dessay must be a bass barytone.

[Daniel Strohl]

Sébastien, Léo

Very interesting explanations, Sébastien and Léo. I have also got hearing problems.

If one makes a bold extrapolation of Sébastien's explanations, French is rather a "male" language, since its frequency range goes up only to 2000 Hz, and English rather a "female" language, since it starts at 2000 Hz :))

More seriously: I have really difficulties to understand spoken English - of course, it depends on the voice structure, the speed of elocution and the accent. I just got hold of an audiogram dating back to April 2006. The "good" ear (the right one) has a loss at 2000 Hz of 30 dB; the loss of the "bad" ear is 45 dB. I use a digital prothesis on the right ear; it helps, but this is all ... The stuff is rather expensive.

PS : the most annoying with hearing problems is when one is within a group of persons all talking together, or if one tries to understand what goes along in a talk show. However, I have no problem to understand my "missus", especially if she is somewhat "énervée" - I know in advance what she will say - this helps or even supersedes the prothesis ...

[Fernandez]

Rocket --

"Are those prophylactics strewn about the floor in front of her on the album cover?

And what's that in her bag. It looks like a baggie with some time of herbs inside."

ROTFLMAO!!! Apparently, she makes "no promises" to clean the house!

Valerie -

The song wasn't bad (probably why it did so well in France) but really wasn't a great melody. (Who's the creepy guy in the window of the music video?)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsUlSvtziXU

Her English language album was absolutely horrible. Wonderful poetry ruined.

I'm still liking that Jeanne Cherhal, "Je tu reviens"

[Fernandez]

"Si tu reviens..."

before anyone corrects me.

(I've got a cold...)

[azloon]

[my "missus", especially if she is somewhat "énervée" - I know in advance what she will say]

'Daniel, empty the trash.'

[jean]

What if the late Segolene Royal supporter (i.e. Carla Bruni) was not a traitor but a sacrifying soldier going to stab Sarkozy in the back by writing dirty songs?

[Charles LaPier]

A funny and witty critics of Carla Bruni's latest album has been released today on the US music blog sweethomenashville.com

Here is the link, just in case:
http://sweethomenashville.com/?p=244

Enjoy and laugh!!!

P.S.: by the way, you'll notice that this album is to be released in UK on July 14, which date happens to be the French national Day. Coincidence?