
Cendres de lune is the last (number 12) song from the first studio album Cendres de lune released on 1 April 1986
This title is an instrumental on which we can just hear Mylène whispering or humming. So there is no lyrics per se.
Music, production, arrangements and direction: Laurent Boutonnat. Sound mixing: Jean-Claude Dequéant.
Cendres de lune closes the album of the same name, it is also used at the beginning of the clip Plus Grandir.

It is also used as a sound illustration of the end credits of this same clip but in a different version without Mylène’s voice and with a slight re-orchestration.

This piece is absolutely suitable for a soundtrack or a background music for some creepy film which was perfectly matched up with the Plus Grandir short film…it starts with the cemetery scene as Mylene is walking between gravestones when she noticed one of them with her name on it.
She also pushes a black old fashioned baby carriage and as the clip unfolds, you can only assume that the baby is the result of the rape. So such a creepy soundtrack from Cendres de lune is a perfect sound effect. In my mind though it is more connected to Chloe and its own distinct chilling-ness…

Either way, it was a very first album made by practically two kids: 25 year old Mylene and Laurent Boutonnat. They included into it anything that was written at the time including the Cendres de lune piece. I didn’t want to deprive it of its own chapter but to say honesty there is not that much to write about. So why don’t we revisit some other songs from the album:





After the moderate success of the first four singles (“Maman a tort“, “My Mum Is Wrong” [the English-language version of “Maman a tort”], “On est tous des imbéciles” and “Plus grandir“), Farmer decided to release her first album. At the time, she had signed a contract for two albums with the recording company Polydor, which reserved the right to break the contract at any time. Fortunately, in 1986, the success of “Libertine” brought Farmer her first big hit and allowed her to produce Cendres de lune.

Its funny how the tide has turned and now Polydor is milking those old records. They just announced the release of the 1986-1996 collection.

On December 04, 2020, Mylène offered the third best-of album of her career, Histoires de. This includes a large number of the singer’s hits. The first CD which brings together those from the period 1986/1996 only offers live versions for fairly complex copyrights reasons.


It took just a little over two months for Histoires de to be certified platinum in France and currently has around 115,000 sales on the meter.





Lets go back 35 years or so…the vinyl release of the Cendres de lune album contained only nine tracks, including “Maman a tort“, “Plus grandir” and its B-side “Chloé“, plus six other songs. Polydor did not obtain the copyright for “My Mum Is Wrong”, “On est tous des imbéciles” and its B-side “L’Annonciation” from RCA the label Farmer released those tracks on and therefore they aren’t included into the 1986-1996 collection which came out in August 2021


However, in 1987, with the increasingly prominence of the Compact Disc, the album was reissued with a total of 12 titles: “Tristana“, the 1987 hit written by Farmer, and two remixes (“Libertine” [remix special club], “Tristana” [remix club]) were added to the track listing. The second and further cassette releases comprise ten songs, including “Tristana”, but missing the two remixes.

The album was also released in Canada and Germany.
The album sold fairly well and was well reviewed. Libertine was of course the biggest win followed by Tristana.

By the way Mylene long term backing vocalist Carole Frédéricks was there starting this very album. She has unfortunately recently passed away. You can read more about her in those chapters:

remixes
remixes: https://soundcloud.com/search?q=Cendres%20de%20lune%20%20mylene%20farmer%20remixes
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