Jean-Jacques Debout recounts Anne Frank, Frida Kahlo and Jean-Paul Belmondo in songs

At the dawn of his 84th birthday, Jean-Jacques Debout decided to recount little-known moments of his life in songs. He recorded an album whose 14 tracks are linked to memories dear to his heart. “I had words and music that had been bouncing around in my head for a long time, but I never found the time to sit down behind my piano to make them concrete,” he says. The confinements allowed him to fill this gap. “With Chantal, we locked ourselves in our new house, near Châteauroux and she pushed me to get to work, with the hope of leaving a trace of these moments lived.” This is how verses linked, in particular, to his young years were born.

In Juilly, he recalls his 10 years, when the dunce that he was, found himself placed in a college near Paris, under the supervision of the Oratory of France. He immediately became friends with another resident of his age, whom he called Jacky: it was Jacques Mesrine. He became a witness to his first thefts, particularly at the end of mass, where he took the church trunk before distributing the money to his friends. “I already loved music and dreamed of a clarinet. One day he gave me one, which then allowed me to start in amateur orchestras. I learned much later that he had taken advantage of an orchestra’s break to steal it!”

In La Pergola, he hums his nostalgia for times spent on the Ile de Ré, at a time when it was not yet frequented by countless tourists. “I went there in the summer to visit my grandmother. I returned there, much later, with my family. Johnny, Sylvie and David, still very young, spent a Christmas with us, and, at the same time, Johnny decided to buy a house. I found one for him, but he never set foot in it!” Les enfants du paradis reminds him of his meetings with Jacques Prévert, who taught him the art of collage. Cinema is also present through Like a Monkey in Winter. This is a tribute to his friend Jean-Paul Belmondo. The actor one day whispered in his ear that he considered having played, alongside Jean Gabin, the best role of his career. “One evening in 1964, he invited me to the premiere of The Man from Rio on the Champs-Élysées. On the way out, I happened to come across Chantal, whom I had met some time earlier. I invited her to dinner in a neighborhood restaurant, Au Vieux Paris, and we never left each other again!”

The lover of letters that he never ceased to be pays homage to Victor Hugo by treating, in his own way, his years of exile. Frida Kahlo allows the painting enthusiast that remains to salute the memory of an artist whose paintings he discovered at the National Museum of Mexico. “It was at a time when, in France, no one, or almost no one, exhibited it.” Finally, À tout à l’heure is a tribute to Anne Frank and her Diary, of which he was a pioneer on stage. “In 1957, when Pascale Audrey performed the first French adaptation in the theater, I replaced Jacques Charrier, in the role of Peter, when he left to make a film with Marcel Carné. Through my words, I chose to deal, in my own way, with this drama which, like everyone else, deeply touched me, and which no one suspected, starting with Anne Frank herself.