PARADIS INANIMÉ

Paradis Inanimé:  the fourth track of the album Point de Suture released on August 25, 2008.

For the live single, it all began on March 8, 2010 with the opening of the ephemeral official site mylenefarmer-stadedefrance.com. On March 11, pre-orders for the Stade de France concert film are open.

We learn on March 13, 2010 via the Stade de France media pre-order forms that the single will be sent to radio stations on April 2 and that the clip is then scheduled to be broadcast on April 7. The title chosen as single is then yet not known.

On April 2, 2010 Paradis Inanimé Live is sent to the radio (this song was chosen as a single in the first clip broadcast March 29). This is an Edit version lasting 3’30.

A Promo CD is in a hurry but there will be no commercialized medium and thus Paradis Inanimé Live becomes the second single of Mylène’s career after C’est dans l’air Live in 2009 not to benefit from any commercial support.

The two photos chosen for the Promo CD are by Mylene’s longtime collaborator and Hervé Lewis half-sister photographer Nathalie Delépine.

For the photo appearing on the front of the cover, Mylène is wearing Jean Paul Gaultier’s flayed outfit as during the interpretation of Paradis Inanimé but this shot was in fact taken during the song Je m’ennuie .

The title is unfortunately totally shunned by radio stations generally reluctant to broadcast live singles. The film of the Stade de France concert was released on April 12, 2010 the day after the film was shown in several cinemas.

This is the March 29 2010 clip Paradis Inanimé  Live is posted on the temporary site Mylène Farmer-stadedefrance directed or better say edited by famous François Hanss (he has created many of the memorable videos including “Je te rend ton amour” )

The video is a sequence of the most striking fragments of the DVD / Blu-Ray “Stade de France”, in support of which the single was released. The video begins with a shot of the intro to the concert, and then to the “live” version of “Paradis inanimé” all 2 hours of the show are swept in front of the audience. Lights, costumes and decorations change. Thus, the clip can be compared to a concert commercial, which shows its main episodes in a few broadcast minutes.

Most of the images come from the two concerts at the Stade de France on September 11 and 12, 2010.

Extracts from Paradis Inanimé are included to the video Stade de France.

Mylène performed Paradis Inanimé during the concerts of the Tour 2009 during the indoor concerts (from May 2 to July 1, 2009) then during the concerts in Stadium (from September 4 to 19, 2009). This is the first song of the show.

The title was arranged for the stage by Laurent Boutonnat. Mylène interprets it alone without dancers and without choreography. She wears the famous flayed outfit created by Jean Paul Gaultier.

The stage images created by Alain Escalle for the entry on stage on Paradis Inanimé were inspired by Dante’s Devine Comedy and the work of Gustave Doré Dante and Béatrice au paradis

Paradis Inanimé is present on the album Point de Suture (2008) and the live album N ° 5 on Tour (2009). Love the name of the album – rings the bell of the famous Chanel N ° 5 and I am sure it didn’t come unnoticed by Mylene multi-versed mind. 🙂

It is her fifth live album and her 15th album including compiles (!!) overall. It was released on 7 December 2009, and it includes the standard set list that she sang during the indoor shows in France.

The video was included in the rotation by such music channels as NRJ Hits, Virgin17, MCM;  and in the rating of the most popular music videos in France, “Paradis inanimé (live)” rose to 24th position.

C’est dans l’air was chosen as the first single from the live album N ° 5 on Tour, audio recording of the indoor tour of the Tour 2009. Released on December 9, 2009, the album sold nearly 130,000 copies in less than a month and was certified double platinum in France.

The lyrics of the song were written by Mylène Farmer (of course!). The music composed by Laurent Boutonnat.

Among the possible influences we find Baudelaire and the collection Les paradis artificiel published in 1860 for this passage from the song:

” Paradis abandonné sous la lune, m’allonger /Paradis artificiel, délétère, moi délaissée”

Another supposed source of inspiration, Châteaubriand and Mémoires d’Outre-Tombe for these words: “It’s the dark, the beyond-grave – It’s the world that is extinguished”.

The song is much more rock (or pop-rock) than the other titles of the album Point de Suture which had been most often pointed out by the fans who then readily evoked a return to the sounds of the album Anamorphosée. A deep voice on the verses then a melody which flies on the refrains.

Death is the theme of this song. Death is a recurring theme in Mylène’s work and present in some form almost in every song Mylene creates.

Paradis Inanimé shows that Mylène evolves over the years, her approach to death in this text being profoundly different from what one might feel when reading her writings in the 80s.

Mylène confided in an interview that “the fact of being mortal “remains unbearable” for her (“7-8” on TF1 in January 2006). Although it the post-Georgino revelations she was in the Buddhistic state of mind of the acceptance and enlightenment unafraid of death. Tt’s reflected in her boost of positivity or should I say introspection…

However, despite this “burden”, her most recent texts on the subject seem less marked by anxiety and darkness. Accepting this simple condition of being mortal, just as unbearable as it remains, perhaps brings some peace to her, although quite relative quietude as evidenced by this song. The mix of music and lyrics are indeed bitter-sweet one. She is such a pro doing just that. Perhaps chocolatier of chansons should be her nickname 😊

This text gives the impression that for the first time Mylène does not offer the gaze of a living woman upon death but rather the gaze of a dead woman upon life in the context of dying. This is on its on very Dante-esque approach…

The body is dead, but the spirit is still there. She speaks to us. Let’s listen. It is about immortality of the soul and as always about the prospective that comes with the “Memento mori” awareness. It is about looking at your self and your life from the other side.

In the second verse, in her “granite bed” (evoking the tomb), the author takes stock. To note the admirable “I decompose my life” allowing to associate or to oppose the time when she was in fact “composing” it (“Compose ma vie”) in the Appelle mon numero.

Note: the little play on words “Dans mon lit, là, de granit, je décompose ma vie” which evokes the lilac flower. Parallel with the “chrysanthemums” at the beginning, flowers with which we surround our dear departed, lilacs (my absolute favorite!) is being the symbol of purity. Purity now lost or regained? We won’t know.

In these memories of her life, Mylène wrote: “Hope, nothingness and boredom”.

The order chosen is interesting tending to demonstrate that boredom is the worst of all that a living person can feel, worse than nothingness… Parallel also evident with the song Je m’ennuie (track 3 of the album). In this “assessment”, Mylène evokes the reading which we know is so dear to her, was almost … vital to her.

“Embrée dans ce bed-stele”: once again the lexical fields bed / death is associated perhaps to better oppose them (the stele is a monolith sometimes funerary monument on which are engraved hieroglyphics).

“Emmarbrée” is a neologism probably allowing to insist on a definitive confinement. Mylène, would she feel trapped in a state that she does not want to accept? But also, a nice play on words like Mylène, the listel being a decorative piece that can be found particularly on funeral monuments.

It opens Stade de France 2009 show just beautifully. Below is a full concert video! If it is blocked in your county please find an alternative links here

The end of the song (for the verses) is really dark.

“From the dark – It is the dark, the beyond – It is the world which is extinguished”: life, light escape inexorably.

“The epitaph will have the audacity – To “respond to my sorrow”: would the inscription on the tomb be only the last link with the world of the living? Mylène is introspective and sad to leave but her sentence seems destined to end, like everything under the sun.

Paradise is commonly used to evoke the place intended after death for people who have been “good” as opposed to hell, she is willing to look at the bright side of death so to speak and believing that she will be in paradise. Do you, my friends? what is your take on that? Please comment below!

However, Mylène feels alone there, “abandoned. The loneliness, sometimes evoked by Mylène in life, would it pursue her until death? Or perhaps she is imagining it as an internal state of being Yourself. Who knows? Do you my dear readers share the same concept of death Are you afraid of it as much as Mylene? Why? Feel free to comment below

Paradis Inanimé is in line with Mylène’s songs with dark lyrics associated with very rhythmic music such as Je m’ennuie or C’est une belle journee. Some fans have also noted allusions to suicide in this text. I can’t say that I see it directly, but it can be underlined as well. As she doesn’t reveal the cause of death so to speak and it is not the main point.

Others have perceived a message in favor of euthanasia and have also observed that the noise that we hear at the end of the song in its studio version resembles that of a machine being unplugged.

Could it be an “artificial” respirator which kept Mylène in an “artificial” paradise? Hmmm…that’s a thought…Let everyone’s imagination run free.

We know now that Mylene very clearly support the Assisted Suicide for the terminally ill.

The main reference for the lyrics is “Les Paradis Artificiels” is an essay published in 1860 by Baudelaire. In this beautifully wrought portrait of the effects of wine, opium, and hashish on the mind, Baudelaire captures the dreamlike visions he experienced during his narcotic trances. These hallucinations, sometimes exquisite, sometimes disturbing, and the delusions of grandeur that often accompanied them, constitute the Paradis Artificiels, the gorgeous yet false worlds of ecstasy that eventually led to his ruin. Contrasting the effects of hashish and opium with those of wine, Baudelaire concludes that “wine exalts the will, hashish destroys it” and makes idlers of all those who use it.

To write such a text, Mylène had to let herself go for a moment to take off from reality so perhaps, that’s the connection?

I have a personal perception of the lyrics. To me, she is saying that no matter how challenging and unhappy this life might be, afterwards there will be a relief, but a relief will not to be to our satisfaction as it is no longer a part of life as we know it. We will be no longer bored, abandoned, unloved, betrayed and hurt but we no longer will have the animate existence. So for that, do live in the fullest, my dear friends, appreciate every living moment no matter how difficult it might seem, you are alive, you are feeling, you are experiencing and for that alone, every day is a gift! Everyday is a cosmic jackpot!

This sublime text should definitely silence those who still dare to claim that Mylène’s pen has lost its quality. The entire Point de suture album is deep, multi-layered and paradoxical. You might say “what else is new? Its Mylene!” but there is an apparent evolution and development especially on the contextual side of the songs. She takes it not one but few steps further. We find ourselves once again with a dropped jaw running after her thoughts. Where to?

She explained it in her interview with Claire Chazal on August 31, 2008 in the “Journal de 20 heures” of TF1: “I deliberately took the singular for ‘Point de suture’, the title, because there is this ambiguity which was indeed wounds that are difficult to sew up and the hope of a cure too.”

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lyrics with translation

Dans mes draps de chrysanthèmes, l'aube peine à me glisser
Doucement son requiem ses poèmes adorés
Dans mon lit, là, de granit, je décompose ma vie
Délits, désirs illicites, l'espoir, le rien et l'ennui
Mais pour toujours, pour l'amour de moi, laissez-moi mon...

Paradis inanimé, long sommeil, lovée
Paradis abandonné sous la lune, m'allonger
Paradis artificiel, délétère, moi délaissée
Et mourir d'être mortelle, mourir d'être aimée

Emmarbrée dans ce lit-stèle, je ne lirai rien ce soir
Ne parlerai plus, rien de tel que s'endormir dans les draps du noir
C'est le sombre, l'outre-tombe, c'est le monde qui s'éteint
L'épitaphe aura l'audace de répondre à mon chagrin

Paradis inanimé, long sommeil, lovée
Paradis abandonné sous la lune, m'allonger
Paradis artificiel, délétère, moi délaissée
Et mourir d'être mortelle, mourir d'être aimée

Paradis inanimé, long sommeil, lovée
Paradis abandonné sous la lune, m'allonger
Paradis artificiel, délétère, moi délaissée
Et mourir d'être mortelle, mourir d'être aimée
Paradis, paradis, paradis, paradis