He could paint despair, depression, madness and confusion. When you see someone’s paintings it’s completely different to seeing a picture in a book, so I was completely surprised by his, well, genius. When I was 16 my brother took me to a big art exhibition in Paris, where I discovered Francis Bacon. I listened to it so much that my family would be like: “Please, stop playing Porque Te Vas! We’ve heard it over and over and we’re going to die!” But as a teenager you’re completely addicted and unable to moderate yourself. It’s one of those songs that gets stuck in your head, even if you don’t like it. There’s something about it that’s really sweet and fragile.
She sings about how the sun is shining even though her heart is sad. The film is about loss and death and the song is a broken love song. I completely fell in love with the film and the song, which I bought on a 45. It came out in the cinema in 1976, when I was nine or something, but I saw it on television as a teenager with friends. Porque Te Vas, which translates as Because You Are Leaving, was originally sung by Jeanette (the British-born singer Janette Anne Dimech), and comes from a Carlos Saura film called Cría Cuervos, which fascinated me as a teenager. On my new album there’s a very famous Spanish song, which I covered purely for pleasure. So for us to go for lunch somewhere where the people who serve you are naked was such a funny thing, but we couldn’t get naked ourselves. It’s not an age where you want to go naked in front of people.
CARLA BRUNI YOUNG FULL
Your teenage years are full of romance and falling in love but they are also a period where there is a sort of shyness. We didn’t go there much, but the people there didn’t wear any clothes. There was music, dancing, guitars, partying all night … Part of the island was a naturist zone. We had that sensation of arriving somewhere that was almost completely untouched by humanity, and suddenly there was this group of teenagers roaming free. Formentera in the early 80s was a Balearic island with a strong Spanish identity, but the hippy community had colonised it and kept it unspoiled. The grandmother wasn’t there, but we told our parents that she was.
When I was 15 years old I went to Formentera on holiday with friends to a friend’s grandmother’s house. Photograph: NATUREWOLRD / Alamy/Alamy The island of Formentera Actually, maybe that’s why it hasn’t become a film.įormentera. Just as in Russian novels, a lot of the characters have the same name, so it gets very confusing and complicated. I’m surprised no one has made it into a film.
Do you say that in English, a saga? It’s the description of a whole era or society, from the beginning. One Hundred Years of Solitude is like a saga. There was no internet, for example, so we had these long summer days to fill our heads with books. Teenagers then read much more than they do now because there was much less choice in what to do. In our summer house, which was quite a big house, there were books everywhere, even in the bathroom. My parents were avid readers, so our houses were full of books. I discovered this Gabriel García Márquez book in the summer when I was between 15 and 16. One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel García Márquez It was a very strong coup de foudre for me. They made a film out of it but even though Nicole Kidman is a great actress and perfect for that role, it’s always tricky to see a film of a book when the book is so set in your own imagination. James was such a great writer and had such a talent for descriptions of everything from the Tuscany countryside to her soul.
CARLA BRUNI YOUNG FREE
It’s about a young woman trying to break free and discover her identity, but in the 19th century – at that time for women it was like they were in jail. It was one of the first high-level pieces of literature that I read without it being something we did for school.
Your soul is not stable like when you are an adult, so this book got really deeply into me. The Portrait of a Lady, by Henry Jamesīeing a teenager is great because you get tattooed by the stuff that you come across. No exaggeration! They are a legendary band, but can’t reform without Joe Strummer, like Queen did without Freddie Mercury. I must have sung Train in Vain seven billion times. I sang the songs from the London Calling album over and over. There was something very strong and working class in their music, and so many cool songs. It was a shock, because I’d been a bit of a hippy, and the Clash were punk, not hippy at all, but I loved everything about them. Then all of a sudden I heard the Clash in my brother’s bedroom. I had been into French and Italian songwriting and folk, very sweet songs. When you’re a teenager you have nothing to do besides school so you have so much time to listen to music and discover things. The Clash were one of my biggest crushes.
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