Johnny Hallyday: “Quelque chose de Tennessee”

Was Johnny Hallyday “Il miglior fabbro”?

Johnny Hallyday (1943-2017) was the stage name of Jean-Philippe Léo Smet. In a career spanning nearly 60 years, Hallyday released 79 albums and sold 110 million records. In the year 2000, he sang in front of the Eiffel Tower to a paying audience of about half a million people. And in 2017, nearly one million people showed up to watch his funeral procession. Hallyday's funeral service at the Church of Sainte Marie-Madeleine was attended by French President Emmanuel Macron, as well as by two of his predecessors in office. Just think about that for a while, please.

Johnny Hallyday was perhaps the most-beloved mononymic character in French history. (I think people respected de Gaulle, rather than loving him.) A French politician once was asked who the people he represented were. His answer: “They are the people who listen to Johnny.”

Writing in the New York Times, Alexandra Marshall wrote: “The French elite is made up of well-spoken front-row kids like Emmanuel Macron, products of exclusive schools, and often from aristocratic families. Mr. Hallyday was for those who didn’t do so well on the test; and, in France, that’s most people.”

Hallyday had a hardscrabble early life. His Belgian vaudevillian father abandoned the family not long after Johnny’s birth. A cousin-in-law from Oklahoma who was a musician (and whose stage name was “Lee Halliday”) became a father figure, introducing the lad to American music, and calling him “Johnny” rather than Jean-Philippe.

When young Johnny began performing in public, he called himself “Johnny Halliday.” However, his first album (1960)* had a typographic (spelling) error on the cover lettering, and from that point on, Johnny Hallyday he was. Success led to more success, and in due course, Hallyday recorded in Nashville (and performed in Las Vegas), at a time before the Beatles had released so much as a single.

*Hello Johnny, Disques Vogue LD 521, 10" LP.

The album Johnny recorded in Nashville in 1962 was entitled Johnny Hallyday Sings America's Rockin’ Hits. But it has also been re-released as Shake the Hand of a Fool (which is the first track). The original LPs have a rather respectable Discogs price spread of Low: $39.58; Median: $75.00; High: $173.91.

Bear Family Records in Germany offers a 2-LP/180-gram Shake the Hand of a Fool reissue that is very reasonably priced (audio samples at the link). But, in view of shipping from Germany, it might be better to look for a US seller.

Hallyday was always held in great esteem by his fellow musicians. If the guitar solos in the official “Quelque chose de Tennessee” music video sound to you like the work of someone you have heard before, that’s because those guitar solos were played by Peter Frampton. Twenty years before that, Johnny Hallyday had employed Jimmy Page as a session musician, in London—pre-Led Zeppelin.

(Believe it or not) Jimi Hendrix opened for Johnny in a series of concerts in early 1966, before Hendrix had started to record Are You Experienced. At a concert in Paris, as Hallyday was getting ready to wrap up his set, Hendrix asked Johnny if he could perform an encore in his place. Hallyday graciously said “Sure.” Hendrix then played “Hey Joe.”

Later, when Hendrix was recording Are You Experienced, he phoned Hallyday, and said words to the effect of, “You were so nice to me, I want you to make the French version of this song, because it is going to be big.”

And yes, that song was very big, despite the fact that the song is a series of questions along the line of, “Hey, Joe; why did you kill your girlfriend???” “Hey Joe” was Hendrix’s first UK single. There’s more than a bit of Vegas (which Johnny was no stranger to) in Johnny’s French-language “Hey Joe” performance.

Without question, Johnny was influenced by Elvis. When Elvis died, Hallyday proclaimed “The whole of my youth died today.” Johnny is universally credited with having brought American rock-and-roll, particularly in the style of Elvis, to France.

But the question I am asking today is whether Johnny Hallyday eventually surpassed Elvis as, so to speak, a content creator. (The subtitle of this article includes the famous quote wherein T.S. Eliot called Ezra Pound “the greater maker.”)

My Exhibit One in support of that proposition is the song that Michel Berger wrote for Johnny, “Quelque chose de Tennessee.” “Quelque chose de Tennessee” was the third single released from the album Rock‘n’Roll Attitude, in 1985. But, inextricably intertwined with the song “Quelque chose de Tennessee” is the official black-and-white music video (also from 1985), the 2017 remastering of which has been viewed more than 43 million times.

The most important thing to know about the song “Quelque chose de Tennessee” is that the title refers not to the United States State of Tennessee, but rather to the pen name of Mississippi-born dramatist Tennessee Williams, whose birth name was Thomas Lanier Williams III. (His ancestor Sidney Lanier was a famous poet.) Williams was the author of The Glass Menagerie, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, A Streetcar Named Desire, and other plays. Most of which reflected Williams’ terribly unhappy early family life.

Johnny Hallyday was apparently well-read. He thought that Tennessee Williams was one of the greatest; even perhaps the greatest playwright of the 20th century. Please ponder that for a moment. In order to get to that position, Johnny carefully had to step over the mortal remains of Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, and André Gide!!! Seeing as Tennessee Williams died in 1983, it seems likely that that event was fresh in Hallyday's mind as he was planning his next album. (Tennessee Williams died at age 71, of a prescription-drug overdose.)

The original album track and the music video of “Quelque chose de Tennessee” start with French actress Nathalie Baye reciting (in French) an excerpt from the end of Act Three of the final version of Tennessee Williams’ drama Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. In that excerpt, the female protagonist Margaret (or, Maggie, or “Cat”) offers her wayward, listless, alcoholic husband renewed support… but only if he will impregnate her.

(The lines excerpted from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof for the Hallyday song are in bold—except, of course, the French actress reads the lines in French.)

MARGARET: Oh, you weak, beautiful people who give up with such grace. What you need is someone to take hold of you—gently, with love, and hand your life back to you, like something gold you let go of—and I can! I'm determined to do it—and nothing's more determined than a cat on a tin roof—is there? Is there, baby?

The music video then unfolds as a miniature artifact of French Cinéma; seriously. Lots of work went into it. They arranged for period vehicles and locations. Apparently they wanted to make you think that the action of the black-and-white video took place in 1969. Here are the highlights of the action:

• (0 to 16 seconds) Nathalie Baye, off-camera, reciting in French the spoken excerpt from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

• (0 to 38 seconds) Johnny Hallyday’s character is a truck driver, perhaps in a coal mine. The video opens with his getting a pink slip in his pay envelope. He goes into a shed, where an African American who is eating his lunch regards him silently. Hallyday’s character leaves. At 18 seconds, as the drama develops, the audio track is Hallyday beginning to sing the lyrics of the song in French.

• (38 seconds to 49 seconds) Johnny Hallyday’s character throws his duffel bag into a freight-train car, and he places his guitar case beside it. He then climbs in. Location shots that look like Tennessee Valley Authority electric-power pylons follow.

• (50 seconds to 1 minute 14 seconds) Johnny Hallyday’s character flags down a truck and hitchhikes. Note the old-model cars. Johnny Hallyday’s character looks out the window at the passing landscape, and then there is a visual flashback to the face of a laughing woman.

• (1:15 to 1:34) Johnny Hallyday’s character is next seen seated at the counter of some kind of diner. The date on the chalkboard menu is December 15, 1969. Hallyday’s character makes sad eye contact with a pretty waitress who seems to be at least a little interested in him.

• (1:35 to 1:40) Hallyday’s character is at the side of the road again, with his duffel bag and guitar case.

• (1:41 to 2:05) Hallyday checks into a small hotel, and is next seen lying on the bed, playing his guitar and singing what the lyrics to the song are, at that point in the audio track.

• (2:06 to 2:27) Exterior shot of a period-correct cab driving up to a suburban ranch house with a period-correct (old) Ford Thunderbird in the driveway, while a little girl of perhaps nine years of age skips across the front lawn. A rear window of the cab rolls down, and Hallyday is about to get out as the girl’s stylishly turned-out mother walks out the front door of the house. But, when Hallyday sees that the woman is accompanied by a well-dressed young man, Hallyday changes his mind and closes the cab door he had started to open.

My surmises are that the child’s father is Hallyday, and that the girl’s mother is the woman Hallyday had a flashback of. I think we are supposed to assume that Wifey dumped the failed-songwriter truck driver, in favor of a dweeb who could afford a nice little house and a Thunderbird.

• (2:28 to 2:39) Now here’s where the French film crew really tests the boundaries of poetic license. There’s a long elevated zoom-out shot of grave diggers using ropes to lower a black coffin into a grave, while a priest in a black suit stands at the foot of the grave. At the head of the grave there is a black tombstone that says “Tennessee Williams,” as well as what are most likely birth and death year dates, with a couple of indecipherable words above Williams’ name. (The real Tennessee Williams died in 1983, not 1969.) Furthermore, the little suburban family is standing in a position of prominence or honor off to the side, with the mother holding an umbrella over herself and the little girl, who is in her arms.

Arranged behind and beside the tombstone there is a medium-sized African American church choir, in choir robes. The thing that strikes me as a bit culturally tone-deaf about that aspect of the mis-en-scene is that the church choir is clapping to their own rhythm and swaying with the beat. However, Tennessee Williams absolutely was not a “Happy Clappy Worship” kind of guy. His grandfather was an Episcopalian Rector in Mississippi; Williams’ family lived in the rectory for many years. Williams’ maternal grandfather picked up much of the financial and emotional slack caused by Williams’ father’s alcoholism.  Furthermore, Tennessee Williams had connections to the University of the South, making that school (which had been founded as the Divinity School of the pre-Civil-War Episcopal Dioceses of the Old South) the residual beneficiary of his estate, after his unfortunate sister’s death. (Her parents had had her lobotomized. Criminy!)

Despite Williams’ insistence that he be buried at sea--furthermore, that he be put into the water as close as possible to where the poet Hart Crane had committed suicide by drowning, his brother, perhaps in an effort to prove that there is no Statute of Limitations on family dysfunctionality, had Williams buried near their mother, in a Catholic cemetery in St. Louis.

• (2:40 to 2:49) The cab drives up to the graveside scene, and this time Johnny gets out. Closer to the camera, there is a severe-looking woman in a bonnet-style hat, under an umbrella. Perhaps she is the grandmother of the little girl. 

• (2:50 to 2:54) A close, eye-level view of the church choir, with a power-transmission pylon in the distance.

• (2:55 to 3:02) Johnny is seen, suitably dressed for a grave occasion, walking purposefully toward the event.

• (3:03 to 3:08) Close-up reaction shot of the little girl as she recognizes Johnny and runs to him. She jumps into his arms.

• (3:09 to 3:12) Reaction shot of the little suburban family reacting to the perceived intrusion. Very frowny. Wifey wants to confront Johnny, but Hubby grabs her arm.

• (3:13 to 3:14) Johnny nuzzles his (apparent) daughter.

• (3:15 to 3:22) Two goonish lads, one wearing a leather jacket, confront Johnny. For several seconds he eyes them as he sizes them up. I think we are supposed to intuit that Johnny is contemplating disrupting an interment with a fistfight.

• (3:23 to 3:29 ) Cut from the goon scene to another flashback of the ex-wife, this time with more of a come-hither look.

• (3:30 to 3:46) The camera swings up to point at the sky, then cutting to a shot of Johnny, who is back to walking down a highway accompanied only by his duffel bag and his guitar case.

To sum up, this truly remarkable music video is a mélange of Southern Gothic and Country Music clichés, in the service of an Operatic story line. Its sole purpose is to tug at our heartstrings. Or, even break them.

Here are the lyrics, first in French, then in English:

Quelque chose de Tennessee

Ah, vous autres, hommes faibles et merveilleux
qui mettez tant de grâce à vous retirer du jeu.
Il faut qu’une main posée sur votre épaule
vous pousse vers la vie, cette main tendre et légère.

On a tous quelque chose en nous de Tennessee,
cette volonté de prolonger la nuit,
ce désir fou de vivre une autre vie,
ce rêve en nous avec ses mots à lui.

Quelque chose de Tennessee,
cette force qui nous pousse vers l’infini.
Y a peu d’amour avec tellement d’envie;
si peu d’amour avec tellement de bruit.
Quelque chose en nous de Tennessee.

Ainsi vivait Tennessee,
le cœur en fièvre et le corps démoli,
avec cette formidable envie de vie,
ce rêve en nous, c’était son cri à lui.
Quelque chose de Tennessee.

Comme une étoile qui s’éteint dans la nuit
à l’heure où d’autres s’aiment à la folie ;
sans un éclat de voix et sans un bruit,
sans un seul amour, sans un seul ami,
ainsi disparut Tennessee.

À certaines heures de la nuit
quand le cœur de la ville s’est endormi,
il flotte un sentiment comme une envie,
ce rêve en nous avec ses mots à lui.
Quelque chose de Tennessee.

Quelque chose de Tennessee.
Oh oui, Tennessee.
Y a quelque chose en nous de Tennessee.

Something of Tennessee

Oh, you weak, beautiful people
Who give up with such grace.
What you need is someone to take hold of you--
Gently, with love, and hand your life back to you

We all have something inside us, of Tennessee
This desire to prolong the night,
This crazy desire to live another life,
The dream within us, in words of his own.

Something of Tennessee,
This force that pushes us towards infinity.
There is little love with so much lust;
So little love with so much noise.
Something inside us of Tennessee.

Thus lived Tennessee,
With a feverish heart and a demolished body,
With this tremendous desire for life,
The dream within us was his cry.
Something of Tennessee.

Like a star that goes out in the night
At a time when people love each other madly;
Without a burst of voice and without a sound,
Without a single love, without a single friend,
Thus disappeared Tennessee.

At certain hours of the night
When the heart of the city is asleep,
A feeling floats like a desire,
The dream within us, in words of his own.
Something of Tennessee.

Something of Tennessee.
Oh yes, Tennessee.
There's something inside us, of Tennessee.

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My heart is so much warmed (and my mind is so much boggled), by the place in French culture held by a sad song about Tennessee Williams that keys off of Williams’ dark legacy of family dysfunctionality, while reminding us that all of us share (at least to some extent) in that legacy.

There's something inside us, of Tennessee. Oh yes, Tennessee.

In 2000, Hallyday serenaded 500,000 of his closest friends, in front of the Eiffel Tower. Most of them seem to know the words.

Here's a crowd that sings even better than the Eiffel Tower crowd:

I love how genuinely Hallyday is moved by their singing. That tour was 2015-2016. It was called his "Stay Alive!" tour. He died the next year, of lung cancer.

Hallyday’s parents were vaudeville performers; he started singing in public about age 13. He "turned professional" at age 15. 58 years before the public. Estimates of his record sales are between 70 and 80 million LPs; who knows how many singles. His posthumous album Mon Pays c’est l’Amour (My Country is Love) sold 780,177 copies in France in one week. For a while he lived in Los Angeles, and he said that it was so liberating to walk down streets, minding his own business, and nobody knew who he was.

Johnny was both unique and courageous. He defied French cultural orthodoxy in two important ways. 

One, he devoted his life to proving that the uniquely American mélange of Rock, Blues, Hillbilly music, Tin Pan Alley, and everything else, was superior to Eurovision's Europop least-common-denominator weenie elevator music. 

Two, it appears that he was at least to some extent traditionally pious (despite having had four wives). Knowing that he was dying (which was in the cards from 2009 on), he managed to get THREE Presidents of France to show up for his funeral service at one of Paris's most important historical Catholic churches, and he arranged to be buried in a Catholic cemetery in the Caribbean.

And to their credit, his last wife and he adopted two Vietnamese girls... despite Dien Bien Phu and all that.

Or, perhaps because of Dien Bien Phu.

ONLY in France do the working-class people know all the words to a Country-Music elegy for a Southern-Gothic American playwright!!!!!

The American equivalent to that would be kinda sorta like--and, to pick one hapless victim at random--US Country singer Garth Brooks’ commissioning and singing an elegy for Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, or André Gide.

Never gonna happen.

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