The foursome recorded around 45 sombre and tormented songs while gaving a number of concerts in the area around Nantes. Later, with the singer Katerine, Dominique Ané recorded a number of songs in a more upbeat and livelier style.
Beginning of a career
At the beginning of the 1990s Dominique Ané recorded songs that were both minimalist and rock in style. He wanted to break with the traditional chanson, which he considered to be more literary than musical[1]. His first CD, released by the Nantes label, Lithium, met with critical acclaim by the alternative magazine, Les Inrockuptibles, and by Bernard Lenoir, the 'John Peel' of France. Furthermore, his song, Le Courage des oiseaux, (the Courage of the Birds), was an underground hit.
From 1992 onwards, he started to produce more and more live shows, either with a backing band or solo. His commercial success grew in 1995 with Le twenty-two bar, a single off the album, La Mémoire Neuve, but this success left a bitter taste in Dominique's mouth because he considered the song to be particularly badly written[1].
In 2000, he composed the score for Antoine Desrosières' black comedy film Banqueroute.
Le Détour and beyond (2002-)
Dominique's discovery of Alain Bashung's dark 2002 album, L'Imprudence shocked him to the point that it put his music into question and he decided to explore different ways of working. He decided to compile what he considered to be the first part of a musical time capsule, a longbox entitled Le Détour. He asked his fans to write about their relationship with his music, and some of their letters were published in the booklet accompanying Le Détour.
For his subsequent album, he wanted to experiment and, consequently, for the first time, he gave control over the album to a third party, the team who produced L'Imprudence. The end result would be Tout sera comme avant (Everything will be like it was before), which was released in 2004. Unfortunately, many fans had difficulty obtaining a copy. At the same time, Dominique gave many live performances variously using a big band, minimalistic backing, or all alone (where he would experiment with oversampling).
In March 2006, L'Horizon came out, a new work that he produced alongside Dominique Brusson, with whom he had made the early album, Remué. It was the first time that Dominique A returned to work with a producer. He was backed by his old collaborators, Sacha Toorop and Olivier Mellano, as well as the musicians with whom he produced Tout sera comme avant. Dominique A had recently quit his record label, Labels, due to his desire for more creative freedom; consequently, it is no surprise that he describes L'Horizon as his most experimental work to date.
Collaboration and influence
Dominique A collaborates regularly with other artists and on other projects. He has been one of the shaping forces of Françoiz Breut's career, writing many of her songs since her début in 1997. He has also composed several songs for Jeanne Balibar's second album, Slalom Dale and wrote Où est la ville ? for Jane Birkin's 2006 album, Fictions. He also sang Veruca Salt et Frank Black in trio with Keren Ann and Vincent Delerm on the latter's second album, Kensington Square.
Dominique A has inspired and influenced many artists. Among them were Yann Tiersen and the Norwegian electro band, Oslo Telescopic, who named one of their albums The Dominique O Project. Lyrically, Dominique's movement away from the constraints of chanson moved many other French-speaking artists, including Miossec, Holden and Arman Méliès.
La mémoire neuve
Dominique A Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
M'a déserté
Enfin je vais profiter
De tout sans rien
En regretter
Affranchi le lendemain
Du souvenir
N'a pas duré
La mémoire m'est revenue mais
J'eus l'intuition que ça n'était
Pas la mienne que je retrouvais
A mesure que me gagnaient
Quelques souvenirs je doutais
Qu'ils m'aient un jour appartenu
Eux qui défilaient sans parler
Mais comme ils pesaient
Moins que rien
Et que cette mémoire n'avait
Nulle trace de jour faste ou mauvais
A merveille elle me conviendrait
Moi qui la croyait calme
Au moment où elle s'accrochait
A moi je crus qu'elle saurait m'épargner
Les rancoeurs et le vin mauvais
Et aujourd'hui j'accuse
Encore le coup, elle m'a bien eu
Elle m'a bien sûr depuis tout dévoilé
Du passé lourd qui m'incombait
Ma vraie mémoire
Reparaîtrait
Elle rirait bien fort de moi
L'autre en tous cas
Bien arrimée
Parraine chacun de mes pas
Et je ne me reconnais pas
Le dos courbe et les yeux baissés
Ces yeux qui balaient le plancher
Sans doute pour la première fois
The verses of the song La mémoire neuve by Dominique A describe the experience of losing one's memory and the liberation it brings, only to eventually regain it and realize that the memories flooding back may not even be one's own. The singer initially feels free from the burden of remembering and can enjoy life without any regrets. However, this newfound freedom is short-lived when his memory begins to return, but he doubts that the memories are truly his. As his memories start to come back, he wonders if they ever belonged to him, and he questions their authenticity. Despite his doubts, the singer decides that this new memory still suits him well because it holds no traces of pain or bad memories. He had thought that this new memory would spare him from feelings of resentment and bad decisions caused by alcohol, but eventually realizes that he was wrong. The real memories eventually resurface, and the singer feels exposed and vulnerable as he reflects on the heavy, burdensome past that he carries with him.
The lyrics of La mémoire neuve suggest that memories are not just simple and objective recallings of the past. Rather, they are subjective, and vulnerable to being altered by external forces. The singer of the song, who starts off with "a blank slate", discovers that memory, as much as it is a tool of identity creation, is also a means of ongoing reinvention. As an interpreter, one could see the song as exploring how we are shaped by memory, to the point where alternate memories can feel more "ours" than our own. It suggests that sometimes we choose to forget and start anew, but our past always catches up to us, and the memories we had tried to forget or deny resurface in the end.
Line by Line Meaning
Ma mémoire m'a
My memory has left me
M'a déserté
Has deserted me
Enfin je vais profiter
Finally I can enjoy
De tout sans rien
Everything without regret
En regretter
Without regretting
Affranchi le lendemain
Free the next day
Du souvenir
From the memory
Fatalement ça
Naturally it
N'a pas duré
Didn't last
La mémoire m'est revenue mais
My memory returned but
J'eus l'intuition que ça n'était
I had the intuition that it wasn't
Pas la mienne que je retrouvais
My own memory that I found
A mesure que me gagnaient
As memories came back to me
Quelques souvenirs je doutais
I doubted some memories
Qu'ils m'aient un jour appartenu
That they belonged to me one day
Eux qui défilaient sans parler
Memories that flashed without words
Mais comme ils pesaient
But as they weighed
Moins que rien
Less than nothing
Et que cette mémoire n'avait
And as this memory had no
Nulle trace de jour faste ou mauvais
Trace of good or bad days
A merveille elle me conviendrait
It would suit me perfectly
Moi qui la croyait calme
I thought it was calm
Au moment où elle s'accrochait
Just as it clung to me
A moi je crus qu'elle saurait m'épargner
I thought it would spare me
Les rancoeurs et le vin mauvais
Bitterness and bad wine
Et aujourd'hui j'accuse
And now I accuse
Encore le coup, elle m'a bien eu
Again, she got me
Elle m'a bien sûr depuis tout dévoilé
She has revealed everything to me since then
Du passé lourd qui m'incombait
Of the heavy past that burdened me
Ma vraie mémoire
My true memory
Reparaîtrait
Would reappear
Elle rirait bien fort de moi
It would laugh loudly at me
L'autre en tous cas
The other one anyway
Bien arrimée
Well anchored
Parraine chacun de mes pas
Sponsors each of my steps
Et je ne me reconnais pas
And I don't recognize myself
Le dos courbe et les yeux baissés
With a hunched back and lowered eyes
Ces yeux qui balaient le plancher
These eyes that sweep the floor
Sans doute pour la première fois
Probably for the first time
Contributed by Kayla K. Suggest a correction in the comments below.