Leaves rustle, the wind blows, without extinguishing the song of the birds which, soon, will give way to the buzzing of a fly. There, some piano notes. Graves. And then, we hear this: “It was in a village on the cliff, a village suspended above the waves, like time. A pirate, on sandy steps, wedding dress, indigo veil, wreath of faded flowers…” A picture planted in small touches, here is born a legendary landscape, straight out of the imagination of an artist for whom the real is bearable only on condition of escaping from it. With Once upon a time, this very first track, Helena Noguerra’s new album plunges us into the heart of a Gothic dream, populated by red horses, tears of ice and a giant from elsewhere. He will break the heart of the pirate, and the dream will become a nightmare. The singer, she becomes a storyteller, playing with Eros, flirting with Thanatos. From one to the other, the same flame: that of revolt. Against stories written in advance, against a world that freezes us in ready-made thoughts, against social roles that are far too clear to be honest. Reinvent the couple? She would like. Re-enchant love? She would like to. She thinks it’s possible. Just have to try. To believe, to say, to do otherwise. In the frames, she rears up, she braces herself, she takes us on board: alternately model, actress, singer or novelist, Helena Noguerra tries, fails, starts again, succeeds, then tries something else… As long as we are alive , we invent. As long as we are not dead, we still have the right to dream: “I love to dream, she smiles. But dream standing up, dream life. I recommend it, because nothing happens that is not first dreamed of. An architect, his house, he first planned it, right? The very fact of having the idea of something is beautiful. Afterwards, of course, the reality is always a little different. Too bad: we will have been able, at least, to create. “An album, for example, that we will sleep on the “Divan”.
Psychologies: If, at the origin of this album, there is a dream, what was it telling you?
Helena Noguerra: To start all over again. We were in the middle of Covid, I was about to turn 50, I was alone: it was the end of the world! [Rires] I panicked. I told myself that life was never going to go back to the way it was, and that I didn’t know the old woman I was becoming. Exactly like when, as a teenager, you don’t know who this looming adult is. Except that at this age we are not afraid of anything. We arrive in Paris, we say to ourselves: “I want to be an actress, singer and model, and it will be possible. Why wouldn’t it be, again? Because everyone tells you that at 50 it’s over, that you’ll work less anyway, because you’ll be wanted less. But these are beliefs! And I refuse them. We can say things differently. We can say: “A woman of 50 is magnificent. But to say is to believe. As soon as we were released, after confinement, I left Paris. I left all my things in the country house I had found just before the pandemic, and I settled into a very small Parisian apartment. I bought a mattress, two armchairs at a flea market and I started from scratch, with white walls that I repainted… I was in the adolescence of my old age, I could start a new life. Yes, it’s a utopia: so what? I’m going to conquer a new world, move around, work differently: no, it won’t be the same life, but I’m no longer afraid of the one to come.
Where did the creation of your label come from at that time?
Yes, it was also a way to authorize a second adolescence. I no longer wanted the constraint of the studios. I wanted to reconnect with the party, with a form of freedom: not having any schedules, playing in the evening with the people I love, doing and redoing the piece as long as the heart is in it. To create made-to-measure albums for myself, but also to get the actresses to sing, which I find great – I love actresses who sing. I wanted to have fun with my muses, actually. I dreamed. And, as often, the reality turns out to be more complicated: it’s difficult to release a record, difficult to break even… That said, it’s not impossible for me to reconsider the question. Only death really stops things, right? And we are never safe from luck.
How was the pirate, in turn, born?
In fact, loneliness in the countryside is far too lonely. [Rires] So I took my whole band of musicians with me, just to create life in my little house, and to share the joy of making music together. One evening, it must have been 11 p.m., we had had a few drinks, we were in the garden, and the village bells started ringing. Philippe Eveno, the guitarist with whom I have worked for twenty years, goes to take his guitar to see in which keys they play. He searches, and I start to sing: “The bells are ringing…” That was the start. We started on this to tell this slightly gothic thing, populated by romantic heroines, inspired by the countryside. I thought of Isabelle Adjani, wandering as Adèle H. in Truffaut’s film, of Angélique, marquise des anges the conqueror, of a Calamity Jane who is afraid of nothing…
The full interview can be found in the new number of Psychologies of the month of December 2022.