Y a pas de génie sans grain de fo... Sans grain de folie! there's no genius without a bit of in... without a bit of insanity! Par la porte opposée elle voit Sa folie Qu'elle va jeter plus loin De toi Melancholic she looks from the opposed door her insanity she's going to get away way further from you
“Lonely Lisa” is a 2010 song recorded by Mylène Farmer. It is the third single from her 2010 # 8 album Bleu Noir and was released digitally on 16 May 2011, then it was released physically on 4 July.
As “Oui mais… non“, the lead single from the album, the lyrics were written by Farmer with the music composed by RedOne (In 2010, he won a first Grammy Award for “Poker Face” by Lady Gaga).
Musically, the song has electro and dance sonorities. It was generally praised in the media and reached number-one on the French Singles Chart.
Perhaps the name Lisa is a special one for her as it is her niece’s name.
Read more about Lisa Gautier and her collaboration with Mylene HERE
In her book she goes even further adding “Loup” to it as if immortalize her brother Jean-Loup who has tragically died. What do you all think? Am I onto something here or totally off?
Originally, the character of Lonely Lisa was a drawing created by Farmer. In 2002, it was used to illustrate the music video for “C’est une belle journée“, then served as trademark registered by Farmer on 15 June 2007 to promote goods derived from her tale Lisa-Loup et le conteur. In 2008, Farmer started the website lonelylisa.com on which visitors can leave their artistic works — photographs, paintings, drawings… — inspired by the character of Lonely Lisa. Unfortunately, as of now the website is no longer running ☹ Any of you have any ideas what happened?
Unlike most of the tracks of the album Bleu Noir, “Lonely Lisa” is an electro-oriented song. Some lyrics seem to be inspired by Aristotle and Pierre Reverdy Poèmes en prose.
I envy those of you, dear friends, who have the privilege to read Reverdy in the original language! I can see how Mylene found herself “understood” and comforted by the mystical cubism of Reverdy.
In solitude he dedicated himself to a search for the spiritual meaning of the physical world and it feels like, it is in some way Mylene’s life. She is in two realms at once and in none at the same time. The New Age philosophy emphasizes that we are in fact spiritual beings having a physical experience and not the other way around…
No wonder why the 3D (aka physical experience) no matter how great it might be still is so very limiting and so unsatisfying on its own. Little curious fact which I brought up in the Chapter about Moby who was born one day before Mylene on the September 11, guess what – Pierre Reverdy was born the day after (no joke!) on September 13…something about the Virgos I am telling you😊 Always been my enormous attraction. Anyone into the astrology around here?
The clip feels like a dream…where the subconscious images start connecting in the whimsical pattern with no rhyme or reason at the first glance, but do nevertheless reflect very deep and often hidden from the consciousness messages and unhealed traumas. This is how I perceive this video: its a childhood discomfort and even panic of not belonging: the girl (aka inner Mylene’s child) is clearly not in her element, an ice-cream truck and the ice-cream (perhaps, the stage of being a kid) melted away too fast with no real satisfaction, a camel covered with glitter and is it Jesus I see in the desert, perhaps a spiritual journey through the abandonment influenced by heavy religious stigmas. The tanning beds like surrealistic time capsules as a hint on the strife to stay eternally young and beautiful and also epic Avant Que L’ombre concerts opening…In the end it all crushes down, it is a fear of the storm (although in the desert) as in overall dominating fear of what might come and what we can’t control…
A short anecdote To make you smile. If you are a Russian, you’d totally get it. When Mylene sings “Lisa” with an emphasis on the last vowel – in Russian it mean “female fox” (“лиса”) It cracks me up every time I hear it (English/Russian me) – “Lonely Female Fox” ..and with the Mylene’s hair color – its a full picture 😊
I have to tell you…about a half an hour after I added this anecdote, I looked out the window to the backyard and saw…I swear!…a red fox just standing there looking at me! The supernatural occurrences keep happening since I have started writing this. I could tell you more but I think you’d start questioning my honesty or sanity! 😊
In late April 2011, while the single “Bleu Noir” was just debuting on the chart, “Lonely Lisa” was officially announced as the next single from the album. A promotional CD was sent to radio stations on 2n of May. The cover of the promotional single used a photograph by Hervé Lewis
who had already produced the CD cover for “Oui mais… non“, and shows Farmer displaying disheveled hair and dressed as a teenager. As noted by Jonathan Homard of Charts In France, the new version on the promotional CD was “embellished with new arrangements, particularly the bridge, enriching it with dance sounds to make more radio-playable than it already was”. This version premiered on NRJ radio on 7 May, at 9.10 a.m. On 16 May, the album version was officially released digitally on the legal platforms of downloads, including iTunes, Virgin Megastores and Amazon.
On 17 May, a promotional CD maxi was in turn sent to radio stations; it contained six new remixes, with a cover displaying an image of three dolls crying blood and having a large scar on the abdomen. However, a controversy occurred on the Internet, as some fans who owned the promotional formats did not allowed webmasters of fan sites to publish the images of the covers without paying. The next day, the list of remixers, which included Jérémy Hills, Mathieu Bouthier, Romain Curtis and Gilles Luka, Laurent Pepper, Greg B:
was published on Facebook. Universal Music also stated on its website that the song will be released on 4 July.
Twill, which produced three remixes with Yohanne Simon, explained that they were contacted by Universal Music a few weeks before the song release, asking them to create both club and radio remixes. He also explained that they had large freedom in the production and that Farmer was present at the recording. He added: “So we tried to conciliate the harmonic sound with the dancefloor one by highlighting the break and the voice of Mylène. To do this, we darkened the mood of the original piece, gave the maximum energy in the chorus and provided an original touch by making this break dubstep.” The remixes were produced from the radio edit version.
Gilles Luka, who also participated in the remixes, explained in an interview that he and Romain Curtis were contacted in April 2011 to remix the song and that the production lasted a week. He added: “Our priority was to enhance Mylène’s voice and to keep the lyrics in their entirety. We sought to harmonically respect the original melody while boosting the production. This is a remix that is more “radio” that truly “club”.”
All the remixes are good in my opinion, all depends on your personal preferences…It’s a cool dance music I use it to work out sometimes.
As far a the video goes it started with the persistent rumors claimed that Benoit Di Sabatino, Farmer’s companion, who previously directed “C’est une belle journée“, “L’amour n’est rien…” and “Appelle mon numéro“, produced the music video in May.
Produced by Roy Raz and released by Universal Music on its website on 1 June, the video was shot in the desert, in Israel, near the Dead Sea, and the scenes in studio were filmed in Tel Aviv.
Perhaps, I started a bit backwards with Lisa first and not with C’est une belle journée, but I hope most of you are familiar with it enough to jump right in
It was noted that it uses many recurring themes of the singer’s universe and thus was the subject of several analyses.
Jonathan Hamard of Charts in France said the video has “no scenario as that for “Libertine” or “California“, but a neat aestheticism that deserves to be praised”.
According to the magazine Tele 7 Jours, David Lynch’s 1984 film Dune is a potential source of inspiration of the video.
“Lonely Lisa” generally received positive reviews from media, and was particularly praised by Farmer’s fans, given the song was among “the most rhythmic and catchy hits by Mylène Farmer”, according to Musique Radio website. For example, NRJ deemed it “a dynamic, rhythmic piece, with electro-sounding and simple but catchy chorus. A potentially future hit, as “Oui mais… non“. France Soir qualified the song “wonderful” and a “very effective” “summer hit” while Gala said it “has a promising career in nightclubs”. In contrast, Sylvain Siclier of Le Monde criticized the song, saying it “sounds mechanic and metallic”. In August 2011, “Lonely Lisa” was elected the number one gay summer hit (out of 15 songs), with 38% of votes, in a poll led by French magazine Têtu on its website.
No televised performance on the song Lonely Lisa
I have also came across a psychoanalysis of the song here (here we go again! :-)). I can’t say I agree but there are some good points:
https://www.innamoramento.net/mylene-farmer/analyses/ptitgenie_lonely-lisa
remixes
instrumental: Saint Etienne – Heading For The Fair (The Time and Space Machine Waltzer Remix)
MY POETRY INSPIRED BY THE SONG
Unfertile Soul!
so much of sand, so many stones,
it’s parched and cracked.
It dries way down, way deep
so it can reach an Artisan stream
it opens every split inviting in,
it looks at every cloud
with hope for rain
but Sun is high…
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Elle est libre Elle a deux vies mais pas de chance Pas d'équilibre Mais elle fait de son mieux elle penche Aimer et fondre l'or Faire de la mort une immortelle Rêver jusqu'à l'aurore Aimer encore, aimer le ciel Lonely Lisa C'est bien ça, un peu de déraison Lonely Lisa Dévissée, et tous à l'unisson Lonely Lisa C'est bien ça, un peu de déraison Plus d'à-quoi-bon Des mots libres, des maux, démolition Mélancolie Par la porte opposée elle voit Sa folie Qu'elle va jeter plus loin de toi Rêver et fondre de l'or Faire de nos morts des immortelles Aimer jusqu'à l'aurore Aimer encore, gagner le ciel Lonely Lisa C'est bien ça, un peu de déraison Lonely Lisa Dévissée, et tous à l'unisson Lonely Lisa C'est bien ça, un peu de déraison Plus d'à-quoi-bon Des mots libres, des maux, démolition Une révolution Tous pour la même, même partition Et la routine pas que du bon A moins de rêver Il nous faut une révolution Pour créer l'envie, l'âme est ainsi Y'a pas de génie sans grain de fo Sans grain de folie! Aimer et fondre de l'or Faire de la mort une immortelle Rêver jusqu'à l'aurore Aimer encore, aimer le ciel Lonely Lisa C'est bien ça, un peu de déraison Lonely Lisa Dévissée, et tous à l'unisson Lonely Lisa C'est bien ça, un peu de déraison Plus d'à-quoi-bon Des mots libres, des maux, démolition Lonely Lisa C'est bien ça, un peu de déraison Lonely Lisa Dévissée, et tous à l'unisson Lonely Lisa C'est bien ça, un peu de déraison Plus d'à-quoi-bon Des mots libres, des maux, démolition
She is free She has two lives but no luck No balance But she does her best she leans To love and melt gold Make death immortal Dreaming until dawn To love again, to love the sky Lonely Lisa It is well that, a little of madness Lonely Lisa Unscrewed, and all in unison Lonely Lisa That's right, a little bit of unreason No more what's-good Free words, evils, demolition Melancholy By the opposite door she sees Her madness That she'll throw further away from you To dream and melt gold To make of our dead immortals To love until dawn To love again, to win the sky Lonely Lisa It is well that, a little of madness Lonely Lisa Detached, and all in unison Lonely Lisa That's right, a little bit of unreason No more what's-good Free words, evils, demolition A revolution All for the same, same score And the routine is not all good Unless you dream We need a revolution To create desire, the soul is like this There is no genius without a grain of fire Without a grain of madness! To love and melt gold To make death immortal To dream until the dawn To love again, to love the sky Lonely Lisa It is well that, a little of madness Lonely Lisa Unscrewed, and all in unison Lonely Lisa That's right, a little bit of unreason No more what's-good Free words, evils, demolition Lonely Lisa It is well that, a little of unreason Lonely Lisa Unscrewed, and all in unison Lonely Lisa That's right, a little bit of unreason No more what's-good Free words, evils, demolition
Merci une fois de plus pour ces explications.