XX
Normandy and Picardy
"À Nouveau" - Philippe Lyotard
Language(s): Normand French
Title Translation: Again
Music: Philippe Lyotard
Lyrics: Philippe Lyotard
Tune: 22 Settembre - Ultimo
Philippe Lyotard, the Normand entrant for the 55th World Hit Festival in Brahmokerto, Fromulya 2nd! Again! They simply couldn't believe it. To come second once was a nice change. To come second twice, and on a tiebreak at that, was agonising. And then, it happened all over again. At first, before the results were corrected, and it looked like N&P would come slightly lower down the board, people still celebrated, and there was certainly no shame in that result; indeed, it was clear after what had been a very long slump before Simone Derrida had become the Head of Delegation, the country was finally back in fighting form at the contest. But then came the news. Missing out by one point, once again. This, this was genuinely painful. And it was painful to no-one more than Derrida herself. How was she ever going to live up to this? She felt the pressure of an expectant nation now firmly on her shoulders as the final result was confirmed, and knew that she had a very big task on her hands. Well, she had never been aiming to do so well herself; Simone's goal had always simply been to show the best of Normand and Picard talent on a world stage, and clearly that was working very well for the country. She had never had the lofty goal of winning, and indeed the prospect was still not something she was aiming for herself. But the increasingly strong ranks of Normand WHF fans, and even the casual audience (which has grown majorly over the last few contests, surprise surprise) probably did expect it, and it seemed that the executives at SRNP were planning on the country finally winning the contest, having already made plans for hosting the event. Of course, however, nothing is ever guaranteed, and there is no reason why Normandy and Picardy should win at some point, nor why they shouldn't come bottom the next contest. Simone of course knew this, but took this in her stride; she would just have to hope that the rest of the country would be more forgiving...
Not everyone had watched the contest, naturally, and one of those people was Philippe Lyotard, a 24 year old singer from Amiens, the capital of Picardy, where his career began. He has been involved in music nearly all of his life, beginning to study the piano under the encouragement of his parents, his father a local politician and his mother an heiress and musician herself, aged seven. Despite his classical training in the piano, he preferred more contemporary music, and indeed won a competition for the record label Nouveaux Sons (New Sounds) in 2016 with a collection of hiphop songs, very far from his training indeed. The studio agreed to take him on as the prize, and he soon began producing an album, whilst continuing to study music, moving to study at the prestigious Cherbourg College of Music, having to live away from his parents. It was here that he won a series of other awards and became more well known before with the release of his first album, "Alice" (an allusion to the character from Alice in Wonderland) in 2018, two singles from which reached number one of the Normand charts, as did the album itself. Indeed, he was even named Young Artist of the Year at the Cherbourg Music Awards. In many ways, he had made it. He was a major, up-and-coming artist. Then, very unexpectedly, after finishing his degree at the College, he returned back home to Amiens and, rather than beginning work on a new album, proceeded to get a job working as a music teacher, doing small gigs on the side in the city's various bars and music lounges. It would seem, after a sudden blitz, having been thrust into the limelight, he had decided that that life was not for him, but yet his passion for music continued to run strong.
Indeed, it is not as if he had disappeared entirely, far from it. And that was, in many ways lucky, because it just so happened he was doing one his performances at a relatively upmarket bar in the city when Simone Derrida happened to be in town, and it just so happened that she went to that bar with a group of friends she was staying with on a short break from her radio show. Choosing a performer in this manner is that much the norm for Simone and the Normand delegation; indeed, she has an almost 'organic' way of choosing the entrants, using her connections across the Normand music industry which she has nurtured over the ways due to her radio role as well as being the head of SRNP cultural programming. For example, she decided on Lilou, the previous entrant, thanks to her role on the jury for the previous years' Cherbourg Music Award, or, to look back to her first run as HoD in WHF 51, she discovered Jean-Pierre Gaulfier in a small, smoky underground bar in the city of Beauvais, and later happened to arrive at the studio where he was working with well-known singer Sacha Deschamps. So, it is clear that Simone has her ways, and so it was in this case too. She managed to speak to him soon after he finished, and frankly Philippe was bemused; he had, of course, heard of the World Hit Festival, but knew next to nothing about it; he had never even watched a single contest. He had no idea what he would be getting himself into. Besides, had he not left that sort of larger stardom and celebrity behind? So, unsurprisingly, he at first had to say no, but Simone was determined that Philippe would be the Normand entrant for the next WHF, no matter what. Philippe had been gracious enough, or perhaps foolish enough depending on your perspective, to leave Simone his contact details, and soon she had sent him the last few contests as a crash course, and a formal request that he agree to be the Normand act for Brahmokerto.
The Derrida Show on SRNP Radio 3, a few months later. Philippe Lyotard had been revealed to be the next Normand entrant, as is now tradition, and his entry, "À Nouveau", had just been played, and thus it was now time for the obligatory interview. Speaking about the process by which he became the entrant, Lyotard told listeners across Normandy and Picardy (and indeed those sad enough to be listening from further afield):
Well, no offense meant, but you [i.e. Simone] can be very insistent, as I learnt. I had originally said that I wasn't interested, that this wans't the sort of thing that I was looking to do, and that I didn't even know anything about the contest. Indeed, I'm still not entirely quite what I've gotten myself self into haha. In any case, yeah, so, she sent me a cheeky email with links to the last few contests, asking me very politely to watch them and get a feel for the contest, and I couldn't well refuse, you see, and so I watched them, and well, now I'm here... No, but seriously, I'm glad she kept on pushing me. I think this is going to be a great experience, I get to do something I'm passionate about, performing. For me, this is a once-in-a-lifetime, and indeed a personal, experience, as much as it is me representing the country, although trust me, the weight of the responsibility is already bearing down on me...
Later on, he was naturally asked about the song, about its message, and whether it had any relevance to his own life, and simply what sort of message he was seeking to get across, to which he responded:
Well, I can't say I had any particular message in mind, to be honest, I just went to go and right a great song, a song that I can truly feel and which I am happy to take to what is almost certainly going to be the biggest stage I will perform on in my life, no doubt... Like everything in this whole mad turn of events, it is personal to me, it is a song which speaks to me, and I can only hope it speaks to you all out there as well. Loss, loss is sadly a pretty universal thing, and is always there, so I think it is universal, there is something there for everyone too... Take from it what you will, at the end of the day. All I can do is write and perform the music
The night air hung heavy over the stage as the final preparations were made. This was the night everything had been leading up to, the whole whirlwind that had transported Philippe from the radio studio in Rouen to the stage in Brahmokerto. How had everything gone so quickly? No matter, he clearly had other concerns at this time. Even though it was nightime, Philippe was still troubled a little by the heat, but of course that was the least of his worries. And at least he was going to be surrounded by plenty of water on stage. Speaking of which, this is what the final preparations consisted of. A large 'pool' of water, large enough to fit a piano in, had been carefully brought onto the stage and positioned in the middle of the light ring on the floor, such that there was just a slight gap. It's sides were just high enough to keep the water in, but not enough to be majorly visible, but in order to help disguise this, a layer of smoke stretched across the stage, lapping up to the edges of the pool and indeed swirling above and across the water, both of them playing with the white light flickering down from the temple structure in the background. The Normand delegation had hoped to convince the Fromulyan organisers to turn off the lights in the background for the performance but sadly had had no luck, but in a way they were ultimately rather glad, as the effect of the light, the smoke and the water unsurprisingly worked with what they were going for. As mentioned, there was a piano sitting in the middle of this pool, and it had been made to look all old and beaten up, with ivy growing around its legs, and across the top, there were little pools of water, as if it had just been raining. However, Philippe himself was not sat at the piano just yet, and instead was waiting on the back platform of the stage, just at the stop of the staircase, which too had had various items and accoutrements strewn across it to add to this look, sort of like an old stately home in a state of decay, in this way deliberately playing on the temple structure in the background as symbols and relics of times gone by, reflective of the desires and beliefs of those been and gone, and which continue to haunt the buildings and echo through them to the present. Or something pretentious like that.
Deep breaths. It wasn't the audience at the venue that worried Philippe. He had, indeed, performed to much larger audiences back home. No, it was the knowledge that so many people were watching across the multiverse, so many pairs of eyes and pairs of ears, something he had not known anything about just a few months ago. And now, he had been dropped deep into it all. And now, it was his time to perform. The final cue. The end of the postcard. The song slowly faded into life. As noted, he was at the top of the staircase leading down onto the main stage, and at this point was illuminated only by the background light, mostly white, although in a sense dirtied by the natural colour of the stone, as it were. As the music faded in, so did the camera feed, to a very close shot of Philippe, pretty much showing his head and down to his shoulders. He was wearing a very dark blue ensemble, with a pair of relatively tight trousers, a shirt, and a long jacket/coat, much like
here, but as stated a dark blue rather than properly black. The first shot was just of him looking up slightly towards the camera, his hand almost shaking as it held the microphone up towards his mouth, and he began to sing the first verse of the song. Throughout the verse, the focus remained on his singing and his fragility within an almost crushing ambience which revealed itself more and more as the camera slowly zoomed outwards to show more and more of him, and his position at the top of the staircase, until eventually by the end of the verse the piano, sitting within the lake amongst the wider carpet of smoke on the lower stage could be seen, the light from behind the stage complex dancing about across the stage. After this, and with the first line of this section of the verse, the camera looked up slightly to show the temple structure in more focus but more importantly the night sky, with a few stars still twinkling away, breaking through the wider set up and light pollution, and also the moon sitting in ghostly silence, casting its own light.
Quelquefois j'imagine sentir à nouveau ces nuits
Les sensations sur ma peau et entendre toutes les bruits
Des voitures au loin et ton souffle près de moi
Pendant que tu levais les yeux aux étoiles, j'ai vu seulement toi
This shot then faded to one from the bottom of the staircase (with a cameraman on stage) looking up as Philippe, at first pointing up to the sky to again point towards the 'stars' supposedly judging him as he began to walk downwards towards the main stage area, obviously continuing to sing as he went, and looking down towards the camera. The cameraman of course had to move backwards as he came further down onto the stage, and move towards the left (from the view of the audience) and around the waterpool and piano, maintaining a constant distance from Philippe as he did so. As noted before, the stairs were covered in various items and towards the bottom, rising from the smoke, the same sort of ivy that was also wrapped around the piano, as the smoke twirled around at the bottom, then being slightly distrubed as Philippe finally reached the main stage area, his feet and the bottom of his legs almost disappearing. He unsurprisingly followed the same path as the cameraman for a while, before turning and stepping into the pool, before sitting down at the piano, dusting and then lifting the cover over the keys, and preparing to begin playing as the chorus began.
J'avais pas honte tandis qu'ils illuminaient en jugement
Fragile comme mon petit cœur, si lontain et si brillant
Mais comme la lune doit décoître, ou la nuit se transforme en journée
Je me suis réveillé, je me suis rendu compte que je rêvais
And thus, as the chorus started, there was a switch to a wider shot of the stage viewed from where the audience was watching, showing the light slowly streaming down onto the stage, the water, the smoke, and Philippe playing the piano chords (his microphone attached to a stand connected to the piano), ultimately a rather ghostly image. The image zoomed in ever so slightly over the course of the chorus, to provide a bit of movement, but mostly the focus was on the eerie, haunting melancholy, and the deep wells of emotion that were being tapped into (or at leas that the Normand delegation were trying to tap into). A faint light from the far side of the stage from Philippe slowly flicked into life, adding a slightly blue tinge to the general lighting scheme, and mixing in amongst the white and the regions of shadow that moved around and above. Just as the chorus came to an end, the LED light ring surrounding Philippe, the piano and the water pool slowly flickered into light, almost as if were an old light that had not been turned on in a very long time, and was in danger of flickering back off permanently at any moment, which helped to provide an underglow through the smoke.
J'peux pas supporter te perdre à nouveau
J'veux que cette moment dure toujours
Juste comme mes memoires ou mes rêves
Mais te souviens-tu même ces jours?
Once this light had flickered into life, and the next verse began, it began to slowly fade on and off, helping again provide a sense of movement and of change, and generally helping to add to the ambience. As the verse began, however, there was a surprisingly sudden shot at Philippe's level at the far side of the piano from him. Philippe, who had essentially been looking down slightly towards the piano, not quite hanging his head in shame but sort of that idea, suddenly and dramatically looked up to the camera across the pools of water and signs of damage and distress on the piano lid, and around which the light continued to flit and flicker. Frankly, there is not much else for me to describe here; the focus was on simplicitly and on letting the song speak for itself at this point, and letting Philippe fill every word with emotion as he looked out towards millions of people watching him. All he could do was keep on singing.
J'n'était pas là-bas vraiment
Tu te sentais finalement?
Mais je tarde que je voie ton visage, il me hante encore
Comme une compagnon de voyage, il me suit en descendant la rue
Au loin de ma propre ville et au loin de ma propre vie
Then, the shot switched to one looking down on the stage from the back platform, down the stairs that Philippe had walked down, down towards the sea of smoke which looked to be growing, beginning to swirl around the bottom of the steps, and even more importantly out beyond Philippe towards the audience watching, who had been asked to use the flashlights on their phones, and some of them had even obliged, which was nice. Philippe returned to his focus on playing the piano, although he did occassionally up towards the camera. This perspective also showed the effect of the light ring, still fading on and off, even better than otherwise.
J'arpentes autour des ruines et je vois ce qu'était autrefois
Maintentant les batiments s'effondrent et la nuit se rapprochent
Les fantômes de ma vie, il me console, toutefois
Bien qu'ils disparaissent comme toi à crépuscule silencieux
After another fade out at the end of the verse, the shot changed changed for the chorus to one above the piano and Philippe, who continued to play and sing as he had been, drawing on his own inner strength and fragility that he was letting out into the world via this song. With each set of drum-beats which drove the chorus, the ring of light would give two especially large flashes, to help accentuate them as the song slowly built up; this was especially clear now given the birds eye view. It slowly moved around 360 degrees with the piano as the central axis of the shot, starting and ending directly above Philippe, his hands visibly moving over the piano keys. I would say 'as this chorus came to an end' but that would do a disservice to the structure of the song, with an intensification at the end leading to a verse with more vigour, a form of intensification that the flat distinction does not cover. But, that cavear out of the way, towards the end of this chorus, as Philippe held onto her note, the small LED screens along the sides of the upper platform/along the side which the stairs went up suddenly flashed into life too, here mostly white, as the lights on the temples in the background changed to a blue colour.
J'peux pas supporter te perdre à nouveau
J'veux que cette moment dure toujours
Juste comme mes memoires ou mes rêves
Mais te souviens-tu même ces jours?
As the song burst into life, Philippe seemed to almost spring up off of his piano stool which he pushed back, creating a series of ripples across the water and disturbing some of the smoke that had reached its way across the thin sea surrounding Philippe and the Piano and was trying to make contact with them both, and began to play the piano standing up, throwing his full force behind it. There was, unsurprisingly a change of shot here, again from the front of the stage and on stage level, relatively close to Philippe as he looked up, his body twisted slightly towards the camera.
J'espère encore que tu serais là un jour en tendant la main
Et je le saisirai et je saurai que tu serais ici demain
Et je ne lâcherai jamais juste comme je l'ai fait avant
Je tiendrai toi informé que je suis ici à chaque moment
As the verse powered on, and Philippe powered through, and the light ring now stayed permanently in colour, its fading duties having been replaced by the small roof-shaped LED panels, spreading waves of light and dark across the stage, and the smoke swirled over the edges, and Philippe's movements, increasingly agitated, disturbed the water, a series of wide, panning shots from various angles were used, again to add a bit more movement and to add to the increasing power of the song. As Philippe again held a long note as he sang "pleurer", the camera shot suddenly zoomed in towards his face, as a single tear moved down it (thanks to the wonders of using the sort of fake tear things that a movie studio might, etc.)
Mais je sais que le spectacle se termine et le rappel arrive
Et je sais que tu dois partir alors qu'il me fait du mal
Alors dis-moi que tu m'aimes et je te croirai à nouveau
Pour que tu puisse d'etre heureux et je puisse pleurer
Then, as the final chorus began, there was again a cut to a wider shot of the entire stage as all the blues and whites suddenly were washed away in a sea of gold, to usher in the final climax, the high point, the point the journey had been leading up to. A panning shot from left to right from this distance was used as Philippe continue to play with perhaps a little too much gusto; this was it, this was the moment he had to make it count, the last big push. This was truly his chance to shine. "Don't screw this up, don't screw this up" ran through his mind briefly, before he essentially lost all capacity to think and simply let himself go. More shots around the stage was the name of the game as the final chorus continued, moving again around but also downwards and inwards, albeit not in one smooth curve, even as Philippe played along with the final instrumental, before coming down just next to him. Even as the song ended, the performance continued momentarily. Philippe's hand hovered over the keys for a moment. Then, slowly, he moved to close the cover again, and sat back on the stool, even though it had moved some difference. With that, the feed faded to black.
J'peux pas supporter te perdre à nouveau
J'veux que cette moment dure toujours
Juste comme mes memoires ou mes rêves
Mais te souviens-tu même ces jours?
J'peux pas supporter te perdre à nouveau
It was finally over. He had done it, he had got through probably the biggest performance of his life. A sigh of relief. "Merci Beaucoup Fromule! Tarima kasih!" he shouted, standing a moment, slightly in shock. A drink would definitely be in order after that. That thought having raced into his head, he thought it might be best to get off the stage, both for that purpose and in order to allow the next act to perform. At least he could watch the rest of the show, even if he held the expectations of a country on his shoulders...