La Poupée qui fait non
Encyclopedia
"La Poupée qui fait non" (English: "The Doll That Says No") is a 1966 song written by Franck Gérald and originally recorded by the French singer/songwriter Michel Polnareff
. There have been several covers of the song (including The Birds
and Saint Etienne
in English) but the most known is probably the 1996
cover recording by the French
artist Mylène Farmer
and the French-born musician Khaled
. The Farmer/Khaled cover was performed during Farmer's 1996 concert tour. After three live performances, the song was finally released as the first single
from Farmer's second live album, Live à Bercy
on 29 April 1997, and became a top five hit in Belgium
.
channel and host by Éric Jean-Jean
, where Farmer was invited to promote her single "Comme j'ai mal
". Previously, the show proposed to Farmer a list of singers with whom she would sing a song. She chose Khaled and decided to perform a cover of Polnareff's song, "La Poupée qui fait non", and the recording lasted four hours.
Interviewed by the French
magazine Instant-Mag, Thierry Rogen, the sound engineer who has participated in the recording, said: "I have participated in the single "La Poupée qui fait non" with Khaled. Laurant [Boutonnat
] was absent. The recording was made in the studio Merga in Suresnes
in the right mood. It has been very rapid. Mylène [Farmer] and Khaled were together for four hours in total".
Farmer said she chose the song because it was the first song she learned when she was a child, and she loved Michel Polnareff
's work. Khaled also said: "This is a common idea, we wanted to sing together. We loved both Polnareff. Personally, I think it's the first song I learned."
The live version, which was released in 1997, was performed only three nights (two in Geneva
and the last at Bercy) as a duet on stage during the 1996 tour. This remained the only collaboration between two artists.
The two remixes available on the CD maxi and the promotional vinyl were produced by Mylène Farmer (this is the only time she has participated in remixes of one of her singles), in collaboration with Thierry Rogen. However, these remixes have not been well appreciated by the singer's fans, because almost all the words have disappeared.
When the song was released, Khaled
declared that he found Farmer very sympathetic. However, later, he said he had felt used by her, since she put herself forward all the time when they performed the song and were interviewed; according to a 2009 edition of Nouvel Observateur, Khaled qualified this collaboration as a "trap".
In France, the single debuted at a peak of number six on 3 May 1997. However, like Farmer's previous top ten hits, it dropped rather quickly and fell off the top 50 after eight weeks.
Surprisingly, the song was a big success in Belgium, where it had a better chart trajectory in the Ultratop 40
than in France. It appeared on the chart for a total of 18 weeks from 24 May 1997, peaked at number five on 21 June, and managed to remain for eight weeks in the top ten. The song ranked at number 41 in the End of year chart.
According to the author Benoît Cachin, in the lyrics the singer seems to await her alter ego who would be "a herald", an angel, that would be her double and her friend. However, the song does not reavel who is this "other": he is just a "friendly presence", like "an angel that flies [alongside Farmer] when she finds herself alone, in the depths of her spleen". About this "Other" mentioned in the title and the lyrics, Farmer said: "I can not give a very precise definition. The Other suggested so many things! This may be the other me, the other, the companion. I took this word to refer to many things, some of which are not visible to us and are hover above us." "This is someone in particular for me, but who has no name, who has no flesh." The psychologist Hugues Royer believes that the other is here "a form of duplication of the person: the angel is the echo of the conscience, a guide that encourages, alerts or discourages. As long as he maintains that dialogue with the being, loneliness remains tolerable". He also said that the message of the song is: Farmer must be "in communion with the other part of herself to gather together and give the best of her talent".
The song has been performed twice on television, exclusively on TF1
: on Star 90 on 13 May 1991, and on Avis de Recherche in 1992. In the ten last seconds of the first performance, she began to cry.
The song has been sung on the 1996 tour, in which Farmer was dressed in red and was crouched before the audience at the end of the song. It was also performed during the 2006 tour and eventually replaced "Ainsi soit je...
" which was performed the first four shows and Farmer always cried.
Michel Polnareff
Michel Polnareff, born in Nérac on 3 July 1944, is a French singer-songwriter who was very popular from the mid-1960s until the early 1980s...
. There have been several covers of the song (including The Birds
The Birds (band)
The Birds were a popular rhythm and blues band in the United Kingdom during the mid 1960s, although they recorded fewer than a dozen songs and released only four singles. Starting out with a hard R&B sound, they later began infusing it with Motown-style vocal harmonies...
and Saint Etienne
Saint Etienne (band)
Saint Etienne are an English Pop group comprising Sarah Cracknell, Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs. They are named after the French football team AS Saint-Étienne.-History:Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs were childhood friends and former music journalists...
in English) but the most known is probably the 1996
1996 in music
This is a list of notable events in music that took place in the year 1996.-January:* January – At the trial of two American teenagers, Nicholaus McDonald and Brian Bassett, for the murder of Bassett's parents and young brother, defense lawyers attempt to lay the blame for the murders on the fact...
cover recording by the French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
artist Mylène Farmer
Mylène Farmer
Mylène Farmer, , born Marie-Hélène Jeanne Gautier, , , is a French singer, songwriter, occasional actress and author....
and the French-born musician Khaled
Khaled (musician)
Khaled Hadj Ibrahim , better known as Khaled, is a raï singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist born in Sidi El Houari in Oran Province of Algeria...
. The Farmer/Khaled cover was performed during Farmer's 1996 concert tour. After three live performances, the song was finally released as the first single
Single (music)
In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...
from Farmer's second live album, Live à Bercy
Live à Bercy
Live à Bercy is the second live album by Mylène Farmer, released on May 21, 1997. It was also produced as a video.-Background:After the successful concerts tour of 1996, whose shows were spread out from May 25 to December 15, a live album was recorded and produced by Thierry Suc, and sponsored by...
on 29 April 1997, and became a top five hit in Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
.
Background and live performances
There is a studio version of this duet, but it was never released. This studio version was performed in lip-sync in a single television show, Tip top, broadcast on a FrenchFrance
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
channel and host by Éric Jean-Jean
Éric Jean-Jean
Éric Jean-Jean is a French radio and television host. He is occasionally an actor.-Biography:In 1988, he became a radio host joining the team Wit FM Bordeaux...
, where Farmer was invited to promote her single "Comme j'ai mal
Comme j'ai mal
"Comme j'ai mal" is a 1995 song recorded by French singer-songwriter Mylène Farmer. Fourth single from her fourth album Anamorphosée, it was released on 1 July 1996...
". Previously, the show proposed to Farmer a list of singers with whom she would sing a song. She chose Khaled and decided to perform a cover of Polnareff's song, "La Poupée qui fait non", and the recording lasted four hours.
Interviewed by the French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
magazine Instant-Mag, Thierry Rogen, the sound engineer who has participated in the recording, said: "I have participated in the single "La Poupée qui fait non" with Khaled. Laurant [Boutonnat
Laurent Boutonnat
Laurent Pierre Marie Boutonnat is a French composer and film and music video director, best known as the songwriting partner of Mylène Farmer and the director of moody, provocative and literature-inspired music videos.- Career :...
] was absent. The recording was made in the studio Merga in Suresnes
Suresnes
Suresnes is a commune in the western suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris. The nearest communes are Neuilly-sur-Seine, Puteaux, Rueil-Malmaison, Saint-Cloud and Boulogne-Billancourt...
in the right mood. It has been very rapid. Mylène [Farmer] and Khaled were together for four hours in total".
Farmer said she chose the song because it was the first song she learned when she was a child, and she loved Michel Polnareff
Michel Polnareff
Michel Polnareff, born in Nérac on 3 July 1944, is a French singer-songwriter who was very popular from the mid-1960s until the early 1980s...
's work. Khaled also said: "This is a common idea, we wanted to sing together. We loved both Polnareff. Personally, I think it's the first song I learned."
The live version, which was released in 1997, was performed only three nights (two in Geneva
Geneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...
and the last at Bercy) as a duet on stage during the 1996 tour. This remained the only collaboration between two artists.
The two remixes available on the CD maxi and the promotional vinyl were produced by Mylène Farmer (this is the only time she has participated in remixes of one of her singles), in collaboration with Thierry Rogen. However, these remixes have not been well appreciated by the singer's fans, because almost all the words have disappeared.
When the song was released, Khaled
Khaled (musician)
Khaled Hadj Ibrahim , better known as Khaled, is a raï singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist born in Sidi El Houari in Oran Province of Algeria...
declared that he found Farmer very sympathetic. However, later, he said he had felt used by her, since she put herself forward all the time when they performed the song and were interviewed; according to a 2009 edition of Nouvel Observateur, Khaled qualified this collaboration as a "trap".
Critical reception
The song generally received negative reviews. According to the author Erwan Chuberre, the duo Khaled / Farmer "which blends the sun and the darkness is on the limit of credibility". "The two worlds [of both singers] really failed to merge and this cover is soon forgotten!" Instant-Mag considered as "absurd" the fact that the studio version was never released, and found that the song "was much harmed by the remixes that accompany it, in which we have as the hazy impression that Mylène was amused herself (and without supervision) to press the buttons on the console of Thierry Rogen".In France, the single debuted at a peak of number six on 3 May 1997. However, like Farmer's previous top ten hits, it dropped rather quickly and fell off the top 50 after eight weeks.
Surprisingly, the song was a big success in Belgium, where it had a better chart trajectory in the Ultratop 40
Ultratop 40
Ultratop 40 singles, often just Ultratop 40, is the weekly chart of best-selling singles in Wallonia and Brussels Capital Region, the french-speaking parts of Belgium. Its equivalent covering the Flanders region is Ultratop 50. Both charts are produced and published by the Ultratop organization...
than in France. It appeared on the chart for a total of 18 weeks from 24 May 1997, peaked at number five on 21 June, and managed to remain for eight weeks in the top ten. The song ranked at number 41 in the End of year chart.
B-side: "L'Autre"
The B-side CD single features the 1996 live version of the song "L'Autre".According to the author Benoît Cachin, in the lyrics the singer seems to await her alter ego who would be "a herald", an angel, that would be her double and her friend. However, the song does not reavel who is this "other": he is just a "friendly presence", like "an angel that flies [alongside Farmer] when she finds herself alone, in the depths of her spleen". About this "Other" mentioned in the title and the lyrics, Farmer said: "I can not give a very precise definition. The Other suggested so many things! This may be the other me, the other, the companion. I took this word to refer to many things, some of which are not visible to us and are hover above us." "This is someone in particular for me, but who has no name, who has no flesh." The psychologist Hugues Royer believes that the other is here "a form of duplication of the person: the angel is the echo of the conscience, a guide that encourages, alerts or discourages. As long as he maintains that dialogue with the being, loneliness remains tolerable". He also said that the message of the song is: Farmer must be "in communion with the other part of herself to gather together and give the best of her talent".
The song has been performed twice on television, exclusively on TF1
TF1
TF1 is a national French TV channel, controlled by TF1 Group, whose major share-holder is Bouygues. TF1's average market share of 24% makes it the most popular domestic network...
: on Star 90 on 13 May 1991, and on Avis de Recherche in 1992. In the ten last seconds of the first performance, she began to cry.
The song has been sung on the 1996 tour, in which Farmer was dressed in red and was crouched before the audience at the end of the song. It was also performed during the 2006 tour and eventually replaced "Ainsi soit je...
Ainsi soit je... (song)
"Ainsi soit je..." is a 1988 song recorded by the French artist Mylène Farmer. The song was released as a single twice: as the second single from her second studio album Ainsi soit je... on 4 April 1988, and as the second single in a live version from her second live album Live à Bercy on 20...
" which was performed the first four shows and Farmer always cried.
Formats and track listings
These are the formats and track listings of single releases of "La Poupée qui fait non":- CD single
- CD maxi / CD maxi - Digipack / CD maxi - Digipack, Israel
- 12" maxi - Promo
- Digital download / CD single - Promo / CD single - Promo - Luxurious edition
- VHS - Promo
Release history
| Date | Label | Region | Format | Catalog |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| March 1997 | Polydor | France, Belgium | CD single - Promo | 3537 |
| 7" maxi - Promo | 2785 | |||
| CD maxi - Promo | 3546 | |||
| VHS - Promo | — | |||
| 29 April 1997 | CD single | 573 872-2 | ||
| CD maxi (+ in Israel) | 573 873-2 | |||
Official versions
| Version | Length | Album | Remixed by | Year | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| "La Poupée qui fait non" | |||||
| Live album version (recorded in 1996) |
4:30 (audio) 5:20 (video) |
Live à Bercy Live à Bercy Live à Bercy is the second live album by Mylène Farmer, released on May 21, 1997. It was also produced as a video.-Background:After the successful concerts tour of 1996, whose shows were spread out from May 25 to December 15, a live album was recorded and produced by Thierry Suc, and sponsored by... |
— | 1996 | See the previous sections |
| Live single version | 4:30 | — | — | 1997 | This version is shorter than the live album one because the final applause are deleted. |
| Say it like you used to club remix | 7:50 | — | Mylène Farmer, Thierry Rogen | 1997 | It is an Arabist Arabist This is an article about the western scholars known as Arabists, not the political movement Pan-Arabism.An Arabist is someone normally from outside the Arab World who specialises in the study of the Arabic language and Arab culture, and often Arabic literature.-Origins:Arabists began in medieval... version in which all the lyrics are deleted, except "C'est une poupée", sang by Farmer. |
| I want a man mix | 6:30 | — | Mylène Farmer, Thierry Rogen | 1997 | There is only few words in this version, as all lyrics originally sung by Khaled Khaled (musician) Khaled Hadj Ibrahim , better known as Khaled, is a raï singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist born in Sidi El Houari in Oran Province of Algeria... are deleted. |
| Live music video | 4:30 | Music Videos II & III Music Videos II & III Music Video II & III is a DVD recorded by the French singer Mylène Farmer, containing all the singer's videoclips from 1992 to 2000. It was released in March 2001 in France.... |
— | 1997 | |
| "L'Autre" | |||||
| Album version | 5:26 | L'Autre... L'Autre... L'Autre... is the third studio album by Mylène Farmer, released on April 9, 1991. It contains the singer's biggest hit, "Désenchantée", which was number-one in France for nine weeks, and other three top ten hits... |
— | 1991 | See the previous sections |
| Live version (recorded in 1996) |
5:50 | Live à Bercy Live à Bercy Live à Bercy is the second live album by Mylène Farmer, released on May 21, 1997. It was also produced as a video.-Background:After the successful concerts tour of 1996, whose shows were spread out from May 25 to December 15, a live album was recorded and produced by Thierry Suc, and sponsored by... |
— | 1996 | The performance is very similar to the album one. The audience sings the song, while Farmer is overwhelmed by emotion. (see 1996 tour) |
| Live single version | 5:21 | — | — | 1997 | This version is identical to the live performance, but the last refrain sung by the audience has been deleted. |
| Live version (recorded in 2006) |
7:25 | Avant que l'ombre... à Bercy Avant que l'ombre... à Bercy Avant que l'ombre... à Bercy is the fourth live album by Mylène Farmer, released on December 4, 2006.- Background :Six years after her Mylenium Tour, Mylène Farmer came back on stage with a tour in 2006 which included 13 shows at Bercy, in Paris. This very successful series of concerts started on... |
— | 2006 | This is an acoustic version of the song. (see Avant que l'ombre... à Bercy (tour) Avant que l'ombre... à Bercy (tour) Avant que l'ombre... à Bercy is the Mylène Farmer's 2006 concert tour in support of her sixth studio album, Avant que l'ombre.... It was the fourth tour of the singer.More than 169,000 tickets were sold one about one year before the concert.-Set list:... ) |
Credits and personnel
These are the credits and the personnel as they appear on the back of the single:- Franck Gérald – lyrics
- Michel PolnareffMichel PolnareffMichel Polnareff, born in Nérac on 3 July 1944, is a French singer-songwriter who was very popular from the mid-1960s until the early 1980s...
– music - Requiem Publishing – editions
- Polydor – recording company
- Claude Gassian – photo
- Com'N.B – design
- Copyright control by Michel Polnareff / S.E.M.I. For F.Gérald
Peak positions
| Chart (1997) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| Belgian (Wallonia) Singles Chart Ultratop 40 Ultratop 40 singles, often just Ultratop 40, is the weekly chart of best-selling singles in Wallonia and Brussels Capital Region, the french-speaking parts of Belgium. Its equivalent covering the Flanders region is Ultratop 50. Both charts are produced and published by the Ultratop organization... |
5 |
| French SNEP Singles Chart | 6 |
Year-end charts
| Chart (1997) | Position |
|---|---|
| Belgian (Wallonia) Singles Chart | 41 |
Sales
| Country | Certification | Physical sales |
|---|---|---|
| France | — | 90,000 |