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.
Les hauts quartiers de peine
Dominique A Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Les hauts quartiers de peine, les avait-on quittes
Le plus dur s'achève, tu m'en vois
Désolé
Tout en bas nous nous sommes laisses
Aller a croire ces hauts quartiers
Loin de nous alors même, qu'on ne cessait d'y penser
Retourner
Pour une fois, tranquille, décide
Pas a pas nous regagnons les
Les hauts quartiers de peine, les avait-on quittes
Sitôt la tu parles déjà de
Redescendre
Redescendre c'est complique
J'ai pris goût a ces hauts quartiers
Ces hauts lieux sans relief, ces contours arrêtes
Quand en bas tant peinent a s'aimer
Puis remonten
(Merci à pierre guichard pour cettes paroles)
The lyrics of Dominique A's song Les hauts quartiers de peine speak of returning to a place of hardship and pain. The singer is apologetic for having to go back, but he and whoever he is with take it step by step. They had left these areas of distress, but after letting themselves believe they were better off elsewhere, they stumble and are left with no choice but to return. The singer has grown to appreciate these high places of pain, where there is clarity and defined boundaries, in contrast to the chaos of those below who struggle to love each other. However, his companion is already speaking of going back down, which he finds complicated.
The lyrics capture a sense of struggle and resignation, as well as a realization that sometimes we are drawn back to places of difficulty and even come to value them. It speaks to the human experience of grappling with past mistakes and the difficulty of breaking free from patterns of negative behavior. The repetition of the phrase "les hauts quartiers de peine" serves to emphasize the significance of this place of pain in the singer's life.
Line by Line Meaning
Pas a pas nous regagnons les
We slowly make our way back to the top
Les hauts quartiers de peine, les avait-on quittes
The high districts of pain, had we left them
Le plus dur s'achève, tu m'en vois
The hardest part is over, you see me
Désolé
Sorry
Tout en bas nous nous sommes laisses
We let ourselves be at the bottom
Aller a croire ces hauts quartiers
Believing in these high districts
Loin de nous alors même, qu'on ne cessait d'y penser
Far from us even though we couldn't stop thinking about it
Un faux pas et pas d'autre choix qu'y
One misstep and no other choice than to go back
Retourner
Return
Pour une fois, tranquille, décide
For once, calm, decided
Sitôt la tu parles déjà de
As soon as you talk about it
Redescendre
Come down
Redescendre c'est complique
Coming down is complicated
J'ai pris goût a ces hauts quartiers
I've acquired a taste for these high districts
Ces hauts lieux sans relief, ces contours arrêtes
These high places without relief, these sharp outlines
Quand en bas tant peinent a s'aimer
When so many struggle to love at the bottom
Puis remonten
Then we go back up
Contributed by Chloe S. Suggest a correction in the comments below.