Hallyday's father, Léon Smet (1908–1989), was Belgian; his mother, Huguette Clerc (1920–2007), was French. Born in Paris, Hallyday took his stage name from his aunt Desta's husband and dance partner Lee Hallyday, a pseudonym for Lee Ketcham, an expatriate Oklahoman, performer, and MC at the Café de Paris where Johnny began his singing career. Johnny was raised by Desta and Lee from a very young age, with Lee being his first manager. Johnny was always very loyal to Lee and secured him a permanent job as a producer and A&R man with his label, Philips Records until Lee's retirement and relocation back to Oklahoma.
His debut single, "Laisse les filles" was released on the Vogue label in March 1960. His first album, Hello Johnny, was released in 1960. In 1961 his cover of "Let's Twist Again" sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc. It topped almost every European chart, although the track did not appear in the UK Singles Chart. He appeared on the American The Ed Sullivan Show with American singing star Connie Francis in a show that was taped at the Moulin Rouge nightclub in Paris. He also staged many appearances in the Paris Olympia under the management of the late Bruno Coquatrix. For their first concert, The Jimi Hendrix Experience opened for Johnny Hallyday in Évreux on 13 October 1966. Black-and-white footage, also from October 1966, exists of Hallyday partying with Hendrix, his manager Chas Chandler and others. There also is a widely published monochrome photograph of Hallyday walking somewhere in Paris in late May 1966 with Bob Dylan.
At the end of the 1960s, Hallyday made a string of albums with Mick Jones and Tommy Brown as musical directors, and Big Jim Sullivan, Bobby Graham and Jimmy Page as session musicians. These are Jeune Homme, Rivière... Ouvre ton Lit (a.k.a. Je suis né dans la rue) and Vie. On Je suis né dans la rue, Hallyday also hired both Peter Frampton and the Small Faces. Amongst their contributions are the songs Amen (Bang Bang), Reclamation (News Report), and Regarde Pour Moi (What You Will), which are variations of Small Faces and Humble Pie (Frampton's band) songs—tracks and they all play on the album. Often forgotten is Hallyday's non-LP single and EP track Que Je T'aime from the same sessions. By 1969 alone, his sales of records exceeded twelve million.
One of Hallyday's later concerts, 100% Johnny: Live à La Tour Eiffel in 2000, attracted an audience of 500,000 and 9.5 million television viewers (the show was broadcast live on French TV). In December 2005, Hallyday had his third number-one single in France, "Mon Plus Beau Noël" (after "Tous ensemble" and "Marie"), dedicated to his adopted daughter Jade. Shortly before announcing his retirement from touring, he released a blues-flavored album, Le Cœur d'un homme, on 12 November 2007. The album hit No. 1 in both France and French-speaking Belgium. In addition to the lead single "Always", Le Cœur d'un homme features "T'aimer si mal", a duet with bluesman Taj Mahal and "I Am the Blues", an English-language song written for Hallyday by U2's lead singer Bono. His next album, Ça ne finira jamais, released in 2008, another No. 1 on the French album chart, and its lead single, "Ça n'finira jamais", also reached No. 1. In 2008 he recorded a series of acoustic songs with French musician Drexl Jonez. Hallyday's most recent album, also a No. 1 hit in France, is Tour 66: Stade de France 2009, a live set recorded at Stade de France during his farewell tour with appearances by Drexl Jonez on the guitar.
French movie producers Michèle and Laurent Pétin introduced Johnny Hallyday to Hong Kong film director Johnnie To. Hallyday was cast as the main role of To's Vengeance after meeting with the director in early 2008. The shooting began in November 2008 and concluded in February 2009.
He was married for 15 years to popular Bulgarian-French singer Sylvie Vartan and the two were considered a "golden couple" for 20 years.
Hallyday completed 181 tours, had 18 platinum albums, and sold more than 110 million records worldwide, making him one of the world's best-selling artists of all time.
Hallyday remains largely unknown outside the Francophone world, thus earning the nickname "the biggest rock star you've never heard of" in English-speaking countries.
On December 5th, 2017 Hallyday died, at age 74, in Marnes-la-Coquette, France.
Toute Seule
Johnny Hallyday Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Elle est toute seule au milieu des gens qui passent,
Seule et si perdue,
Juste une ombre, une trace.
Elle est toute seule.
Elle imagine, elle imagine,
Elle imagine les mots doux, les mots douceur
Mais qu'elle connaît par cœur.
Elle imagine
Et tant de matins
Perdus à garder dans son ventre
Tant de silence qu'elle aurait tant aimé dire
Et tant de sang brûlant qui cogne dans ses tempes,
Et cette envie de prendre, cette envie d'appartenir
Mais elle est toute seule.
Elle imagine, elle imagine,
Elle imagine ses mains, ses yeux, son sourire,
Ces mots qu'elle attend ceux qu'il saurait lui dire.
Elle imagine.
The lyrics to Johnny Hallyday's Toute Seule describe a woman who feels alone and isolated in the midst of a crowd. She is lost and just a shadow of herself. The woman imagines the affectionate words and gestures that she longs for but does not receive from those around her, keeping them close to her heart even though they remain unspoken. She is consumed by a sense of unfulfilled desire, loneliness, and the weight of unspoken truths.
The lyrics paint a picture of a woman who yearns for love, connection, and understanding in a world that is indifferent or even hostile to her desires. She carries within her a profound sense of loss and longing that she cannot shake off, despite her attempts to find solace in her imagination. The lyrics are poignant and evocative, capturing the sadness and longing that many of us feel at one point or another in our lives.
Line by Line Meaning
Elle est toute seule, elle est toute seule.
She is all alone, she is all alone.
Elle est toute seule au milieu des gens qui passent,
She is all alone amidst the people passing by,
Seule et si perdue,
Lonely and so lost,
Juste une ombre, une trace.
Just a shadow, a trace.
Elle est toute seule.
She is all alone.
Elle imagine, elle imagine,
She imagines, she imagines,
Elle imagine les mots doux, les mots douceur
She imagines sweet words,
Qu'on ne lui dit pas
That no one tells her,
Mais qu'elle connaît par cœur.
But that she knows by heart.
Elle imagine
She imagines
Et tant de matins
And so many mornings
Perdus à garder dans son ventre
Lost spent keeping it inside her
Tant de silence qu'elle aurait tant aimé dire
So much silence she wished she could speak out
Et tant de sang brûlant qui cogne dans ses tempes,
And so much burning blood pounding in her temples,
Et cette envie de prendre, cette envie d'appartenir
And this desire to take, this desire to belong
Mais elle est toute seule.
But she is all alone.
Elle imagine, elle imagine,
She imagines, she imagines,
Elle imagine ses mains, ses yeux, son sourire,
She imagines his hands, his eyes, his smile,
Ces mots qu'elle attend ceux qu'il saurait lui dire.
Those words she waits for, the ones he would know to say to her.
Elle imagine.
She imagines.
Contributed by Madelyn W. Suggest a correction in the comments below.