Jean-Jacques Goldman, who just celebrated his 71st birthday on October 11, is a songwriter who has been able to put his talents to use for other artists. If his own musical career is punctuated with success, the interpreter of I give you has indeed written for other stars such as Celine Dion or Johnny Hallyday. “Goldman’s strength is his Anglo-Saxon influences in his music and melodies, his committed character, but above all his talent as a lyricist”, confides to Planet Fabien Lecoeuvre, press officer and specialist in French song. A talent that allowed him to write one of the most beautiful love songs of French song: I promise you, but also the song Laura in tribute to his daughter.
A song that Jean-Jacques Goldman wrote to him in 1985. “Johnny told me that he had had dinner with Jean-Jacques Goldman and that he had offered to write a song for his daughter”, confides the attaché of hurry. A proposal immediately refused by the Taulier, who found it “cheesy”, knowing that he had also already performed a song in tribute to his son David Hallyday in 1966. Fabien Lecoeuvre says that Jean-Jacques Goldman discussed a lot with him, asking him about what it meant to have a child for him at a mature age.
“When Goldman comes back to read him the text, Johnny says nothing. His eyes were wet and he was almost crying. So he finally agreed to perform the song on one condition: to change one word of the lyrics”, explains the author of 1001 secret stories of songs. He will indeed change the word “to grow old” by “to grow” in the phrase of the song “And watching you grow will make me grow old”. Johnny Hallyday did not want to sing this word because for him “an idol never gets old”. “A singer for me is the same age all his life”, assures Fabien Lecoeuvre.
Jean-Jacques Goldman will also write him the most emblematic of the love songs I promise you, released in 1986. A title actually written at the request of the artist to seduce at the time Adeline Blondieau, who was almost 30 years old. years of difference. “Johnny wanted a song to speak to a young woman who was half his age”, reveals Fabien Lecoeuvre. A song that remains to this day one of the most beautiful songs of the French musical repertoire.
The specialist in French song explains that “the formidable quality of Goldman” is its involvement with artists to write them a song. “He makes tailor-made songs for artists. He has dinner with them, talks for hours on the phone. That’s what gives him this inspiration by allowing him to better understand the sensitivity of singers. He’s a real talent”, believes Fabien Lecoeuvre.
Few people know that Jean-Jacques Goldman put his talent as a composer and lyricist at the service of artists from the great family of French song such as Roch Voisine, Patrick Bruel or Patricia Kaas. Songs that still earn him very large royalties to this day. “It’s monstrous everything that Goldman has written,” enthuses the specialist in French song. Titles sometimes written under a pseudonym: Sam Brewski. “He wrote masterpieces that stick to people’s skin,” says Fabien Lecoeuvre. He quotes in particular Il me dit que je suis belle in 1994 for Patricia Kaas. Songs that will all end up in the top 50 when they are released.