Yann Tiersen (born in Brest, Brittany, France on 23 June 1970) is a French … Read Full Bio ↴Yann Tiersen (born in Brest, Brittany, France on 23 June 1970) is a French musician and composer. His musical career is split between studio albums, collaborations and film soundtracks. His music involves a large variety of instruments; primarily the guitar, piano, synthesizer or violin together with instruments like the melodica, xylophone, toy piano, harpsichord, accordion and typewriter.

Tiersen has been honing his musical aesthetic since he could stand on two legs. He started learning piano at the age of four, taking up violin at the age of six and receiving classical training at musical academies in Rennes, Nantes and Boulogne. Then, at the age of 13, he chose to alter his destiny, breaking his violin into pieces, buying a guitar and forming a rock band.

Yann Tiersen has collaborated with vocal artists like Claire Pichet ("Le phare" and "Rue des cascades"), Elizabeth Fraser ("Les retrouvailles") and Shannon Wright ("Yann Tiersen and Shannon Wright"). Other musicians he has worked with include The Divine Comedy, Noir Désir, Dominique A., Francoiz Breut, Les Têtes Raides, The Married Monk and Sage Francis

Tiersen got a musical education from the city of Rennes' annual Transmusicales festival, seeing acts like Nirvana, Einstürzende Neubaten, Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, The Cramps, Television and Suicide. When his band broke up a few years later, instead of hunting for some new musicians, he bought a cheap mixing desk, an eight-track reel, and started recording music solo with a synth, sampler and drum machine, poring over the grooves of old records on the hunt for loops and orchestral strings to plunder.

As it turned out, though, the key to his new approach lay in his own past. "One day I thought, instead of spending days on research and listening to tons of records to find the nearest sound of what I have in mind, why don't I fix this fucking violin and use it?" Through the summer of 1993, Tiersen stayed in his apartment, recording music alone with guitar, violin and accordion, guided not by the classical canon, but by intuition and his vision of "a musical anarchy".

By the end of the summer of 1993, Tiersen had recorded over 40 tracks, which would form the bulk of his first two albums. 1995's La Valse Des Monstres, inspired by Tod Browning's Freaks and Yukio Mishima's The Damask Drum was the second album to be released on Nancy-based label Ici, d'ailleurs. It would be followed six months later by Rue Des Cascades, a collection of short pieces recorded with toy piano, harpsichord, violin, accordion and mandolin. Six years later, the record would find a much larger audience when several tracks, along with a couple of Tiersen originals, would be used on the soundtrack to Jean-Pierre Jeunet's film Amelie (2001).

Tiersen's commercial breakthrough would come earlier, though, and off his own back. 1998's Le Phare (The Light House) was recorded in self-imposed seclusion on the isle of Ouessant, where Tiersen spent two months living in a rented house. At night, he watched the Creach'h, the most powerful lighthouse in Europe, as it illuminated the surrounding scenery. "I was amazed how the rays of lights from the lighthouse revealed some hidden details of the land, how we can rediscover something we have everyday, just in front of us, by a light pointing on it," says Tiersen.

Le Phare went on to sell over 160,000 copies, confirming Tiersen's status as one of the most pioneering and original artists of his generation and commencing a run of successful albums like 2001's L'Absente (featuring orchestral group Synaxis, Lisa Germano and the Divine Comedy's Neil Hannon) and 2005's Les Retrouvailles (with guests Stuart Staples of Tindersticks, Jane Birkin and Elizabeth Fraser of Cocteau Twins). In this period, Tiersen also took his music out around the world, playing shows with a full orchestra and an amplified string quartet – a set-up captured on 2002's electrifying live album C'etait ici. And following the box-office success of Amelie, Tiersen's skills as a soundtracker were much in demand, leading to scores for the likes of Wolfgang Becker's tragicomedy Good Bye Lenin! (2003) and Tabarly (2008), a documentary about the French sailor Éric Tabarly, who ate his final meal on Ouessant Island before he meeting a watery end in the Irish sea.

Discography:
La valse des monstres (1995)
Rue des cascades (1996)
Le phare (1998)
Tout est calme (1999)
Black session (1999, radio concert)
L'absente (2001)
Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (2001, Soundtrack)
C'était ici (2002, Live and Best Of)
Good Bye Lenin! (2003, Soundtrack)
Yann Tiersen and Shannon Wright (2004)
Les Retrouvailles (2005)
On Tour (2006, Live)
Tabarly (2008)
Dust Lane (2010)

TRACKS

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Ginette
Yann Tiersen Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

La mer ça ne s'invente pas
Et nous on crève à rester là
Et le funambule beau qu'il est
Marchant sur son fil
Charles il disait l'albatros
Il en est mort
A marcher sur la terre
Mais c'est pas fini
On va continuer
A marcher dans les airs
Et les supermarchés
Pour nous donner l'air
De ne pas rien faire
Et pour manger
On va s'aimer encore et encore
Pendant des années
J'étais là moi monsieur
Sinon on sait pas trop ce qu'il faut faire
Et là y a la Ginette qui valse en guinguette
Qu'a toujours un verre d'avance
Des fois qu'on ferme la dernière porte
Faut s'enivrer quoi qu'il arrive
Et puis rêver et faire la fête
C'est des musiciens sur des tréteaux
Tôt ou tard ça va s'écrouler
Mais leur histoire on s'en fout
Ginette continue à tourner
Sur cet air de ferraille et de verres cassés
Allez Ginette!

La mer ça ne s'invente pas
Et nous on crève à rester là
Et c'est tout.

Overall Meaning

The lyrics of "Ginette" by Yann Tiersen/Les Tetes Raides paint a vivid picture of a society that is stuck in a mundane existence and is slowly suffocating. The opening lines "La mer ça ne s'invente pas / Et nous on crève à rester là" (The sea cannot be invented / And we are dying by staying here) sets the tone for the song as it points out the lack of imagination and creativity that is present in the world around them. The next few lines speak about the funambule (tightrope walker) and how he walked on a tightrope until he died. This references the famous poem "L'Albatros" by Charles Baudelaire, in which an albatross is compared to a tightrope walker who is unable to fly due to being trapped in a society that doesn't appreciate his uniqueness. The song goes on to say that they will continue to walk in the air and frequent supermarkets to make it appear as if they are doing something, but ultimately they will just keep loving each other.

The song's chorus is where Ginette is introduced. Ginette, who is waltzing in a guinguette (dance hall), is always one step ahead with her drink, just in case they close the last door. The repetition of "Faut s'enivrer quoi qu'il arrive / Et puis rêver et faire la fête" (We must get drunk no matter what / And then dream and party) emphasizes the importance of escapism and how it is essential to cope with the harsh realities of life.

Line by Line Meaning

La mer ça ne s'invente pas
The sea is a natural wonder that is not man-made.

Et nous on crève à rester là
And yet we are dying to stay in one place.

Et le funambule beau qu'il est
And the beautiful tightrope walker that he is.

Marchant sur son fil
Walking on his tightrope.

Charles il disait l'albatros
Charles used to talk about the albatross.

Il en est mort
He died because of it.

A marcher sur la terre
By walking on the ground.

Mais c'est pas fini
But it's not over yet.

On va continuer
We will keep going.

A marcher dans les airs
Walking in the air.

Et les supermarchés
And the supermarkets.