Quelqu’un m’a dit
Carla Bruni is known to most people outside of Europe as the wife of French President Nicolas Sarkozy. But before she was the First Lady of France she was a fashion model as well as an accomplished songwriter and singer. Besides being astonishingly pretty, her music is amazingly beautiful. Her debut album was ‘Quelqu’un m’a dit’, which was a critical and commercial success in France when it was released in 2003.
The album is delicately soft, intimate and touching. Most of it is sung in French with touches of Italian, as that is where Bruni is originally from. The title track, ‘Quelqu’un m’a dit’, is a stunning song. It’s Carla’s voice and an acoustic guitar. But it’s really her voice, which is soft, scratchy, delicate and alluring, that carries the song. What is even better than the song is the story behind it.
‘Quelqu’un m’a dit’ translates to ‘Somebody told me’ (I’ll contribute that to the French classes I recently started). Carla Bruni and Leos Carax were lovers. Bruni eventually left the broken hearted filmmaker, but one night at a party Carax heard a rumor that his one time love still held a flame for him. He immediately rushed home and wrote her a letter, which began with ‘Quelqu’un m’a dit’ (Somebody told me). ‘Somebody told me that there might be some small possibility that you still love me’. While this romantic note didn’t end in Bruni returning to Carax, it inspired her to put music to ‘Quelqu’un m’a dit’ and thus this beautiful song was born. To this day Leos Carax is still credited with the lyrics.
Reader Comments
THIS IS SO NICE! and such a sad story
sigh.