ET POURTANT…

Et pourtant… (And yet) is a song from Mylène Farmer’s sixth studio album, Avant que l’ombre…   released on 4 April 2005

I rarely cover songs from the same album back-to-back but this one deserves to be an exception. Plus, it is such a good excuse to spend more time with this truly magical album. Everything is beautiful about it. What a vulnerable and defenselessly gorgeous song. And still (!!) it is so Mylene with her high voice vocals bordering with whispers but is also revealing the whole new level of mega-penetrating lyrics and music to go with.

Our favorite duo, no doubts, grew up and matured now both approaching 50s mark and seeing life experiences in the whole new light.  The entire album has such a spiritual depth which enlightens you without causing pain like it was in the past albums (at least for me). It is peaceful yet very powerful message. And this song is no exception.

In fact, Mylene performs a duet with herself singing two different voices (recorded separately of course and then combined). To me it creates such a magical effect that it inevitably links in my mind to another famous duet from Jacques Offenbach – Barcarolle from The Tales of Hoffmann, “Belle nuit, ô nuit d’amour”

The song resonates with me so strongly that I draw healing power from it. Its a music for the Soul. The love is (still) the answer no matter how much pain one might endure in their life, no matter what nightmares we are forced to wake up from, only love (and it is in a very broad sense ) but only the Love is a true path in life. L’amour toujour…

I love prayer like half-whispers, her high notes go straight to the heart…  the overwhelming sadness and clarity of the musical flow…Strings, guitar and some special effects are just gorgeous in the studio version.

Et pourtant…  was sung on all dates of the 2013 Timeless tour from September 7 to December 06, 2013 .
The title is absent from the live album Timeless 2013 but present on the video Timeless 2013 Le Film (audio and video recordings during the concerts at the Halle Tony Garnier in Lyon on September 24, 25, 27 and 28, 2013) released on DVD and Blu-ray May 16, 2014 .
Arrangements for the stage: Laurent Boutonnat.

The live performance accompanied just by the piano by Yvan Cassar is so vulnerable and beautiful! Yvan has created a truly dramatic effect by taking the melody into the whole classic symphonic realm after Mylene was done singing and left the stage

For the text of this song, Mylène seems to have been influenced by her readings of Pierre Reverdy.

The beginning of the song: “When the dreams / woke me up / When we do not dare / to cry ” recalls the lines of two poems from the collection Sources du vent (1929); Story: “The draft closes my door / And dreams have woken me up” and Last hour: “The lips come forward / We don’t dare to cry“.

The immediate sequel to the song: “Something at the end of me / that hurts me” brings us back to the poem Derrière la gare: “It’s transparent like crystal / Something at my fingertips that hurts / When I knew you / When I held you”.

Finally, when Mylène sings at the beginning of the last verse: “There, however / The day has risen / to enlighten the world“, Pierre Reverdy wrote in his poem The man and the night: “And when the day rises to enlighten the world / is that we have finally opened our eyes “.

Lyrics are by Mylene Farmer, music composed, produced, programmed, arranged as well as a keyboard and percussion and xylophone by Laurent Boutonnat (aka Pol Ramirez del Piu)

No televised performance on And still …

“The swing between songs to dream or cry (Avant que l’ombre…, Give me back, Behind the windows, all these fights, And yet … ), hooks hymns ( Fuck them all, QI, Aime, L’Amour est rien …, PEUT-ÊTRE TOI … ) so that the body moves, is an art that Farmer and Boutonnat have perfected from album to album . […] We will leave to the usual “hairstylists” who want to “explain” Mylène Farmer the care of finding double or triple meaning and psychoanalytic references to texts. The need for rhyme and play with words – a little easy on IQ and Porno Graphics, only weaknesses of the disc – is often the most satisfactory of the explanations. The rest is for the singer’s privacy and has nothing to do here. (Le Monde – xx April 2005)

If Avant que l’ombre (my previous chapter) was concluding the entire concert in 2006, this song was chosen to conclude Ballad act of the Timeless Tour. Mylene chooses those profound ballads to pacify us as well as to put us into the introspective mood. In this case just to shake us up with the dynamic performance of Désenchantée which follows this song in the setlist. The piano solo by Yvan Cassar is just mind blowing as well as the entire music bridge – WOW WOW WOW…amazing!

Watch this full Timeless video of a very good quality – thank you to our Chinese friends. The song starts on the 59 minute: https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1xp4y1S7K9/?spm_id_from=333.788.videocard.0

my poetry inspired by the song

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lyrics with translation

Quand les songes
M'ont réveillée
Quand on n'ose pas
Crier

Quelque chose au bout du moi
Qui me fait mal
Mais tes lèvres ont fait de moi
Un éclat... de toi

Et pourtant
Le jour s'est couché
Pour éteindre le monde
Et pourtant
L'amour est court
D'innocent,
J'entrevoyais le chemin
Qui mène à l'ombre
Et pourtant
L'amour toujours

Si les roses
Etaient si belles... fleuries
Rien de grave
Elles n'ont pas su... l'épine

L'improbable silhouette
Qui s'avance
Imprévue dans ce silence
Qui guette une absence

Là, pourtant
Le jour s'est levé
Pour éclairer le monde
Comme avant
L'amour est onde
D'innocent,
J'entrevoyais le chemin
Qui mène aux ombres
Et pourtant
L'amour est comble


When the dreams
Woke me up
When we don't dare
Cry out

Something at the end of me
That hurts me
But your lips have made me
A shard... of you

And yet
The day has set
To extinguish the world
And yet
Love is short
Of innocence,
I could see the way
That leads to the shadow
And yet
Love always

If the roses
Were so beautiful... in bloom
Nothing to worry about
They did not know... the thorn

The improbable silhouette
Who advances
Unforeseen in this silence
Who watches for an absence

There, however
The day has dawned
To light up the world
As before
Love is a wave
Of innocence,
I could see the path
That leads to the shadows
And yet
Love is top (the highest point)