La Violence et l'Ennui

La Violence et l'Ennui (English: Violence and Boredom) is an album by Léo Ferré released in 1980 by RCA Records.

La Violence et l'Ennui
Studio album by
Léo Ferré
Released1980
RecordedFebruary 1979 at Regson Studio, Milano (Italy)
? 1979 at Fonior Studio, Bruxelles (Belgium)
GenreChanson, symphonic
Length39:41
LabelRCA, La Mémoire et la Mer
Léo Ferré chronology
Il est six heures ici et midi à New York
(1979)		 La Violence et l'Ennui
(1980)		 L'Imaginaire
(1982)

History

Léo Ferré reveals during interviews with French medias the mindset behind this album: for him, in 1980 "the time is pathetic, dismal, flabby, sweating with fear... People let them being scammed far too much. All you want to make them swallow, they swallow; you lead them by the nose. They are not stupid however; but you hammer so many slogans and advertisements in their heads that they end up being impregnated."[1]

That's why Ferré puts here his three previous albums' (relative) serenity aside and reintroduces poetic violence, sharp spoken word and urgency feel in his work, to counteract artistically and morally what he considers to be a lack of critical thinking from his contemporaries, self-denial and submission he sees all around him.

About boredom, he says in 1981, "Never let boredom win over you. If you feel it coming then you must go out, yell, screw up power and millenniums of morality you carry on your shoulders, go far away... get out of that glue."[2]

This album is the result of two separate recording sessions: one with the RAI National Symphony Orchestra, taken from the recording sessions of the previous album (Il est six heures ici et midi à New York) in February 1979, and the other carried almost alone by Ferré in Brussels, far from his usual collaborators in Italy (where he lives since 1970).

Track listing

All songs written, composed, arranged and directed by Léo Ferré, except Frères humains, l'amour n'a pas d'âge, written by François Villon and Léo Ferré.

Original LP
Side one
No.TitleLength
1."La Violence et l'Ennui" (Violence and Boredom)6:22
2."La Tristesse" (Sadness)5:00
3."Géométriquement tien" (Geometrically Yours)3:01
4."Words... Words... Words..."5:09
Side two
No.TitleLength
5."Marseille"3:55
6."La Mer Noire" (The Black Sea)5:07
7."FLB[3]"6:57
8."Frères humains, l'amour n'a pas d'âge" (Human brothers, Love as no Age)4:27
Total length:39:41

Personnel

Production
  • Producer: Léo Ferré
  • Engineer: Paolo Bocchi (tracks 2, 4, 8), Jan Vercauteren (tracks 1, 3, 5, 6, 7)
  • Arranger: Léo Ferré
  • Cover photography: André Villers

References
  1. Interview with Lucien Rioux, Le Nouvel Observateur, December 22, 1980.
  2. (in French) Robert Belleret, Léo Ferré, une vie d'artiste : ninth part, chap. « Ô ma sœur la violence ô ma sœur lassitude », Actes Sud, 1996.
  3. The title of this sea song may be the acronym of the Breton Liberation Front ("Front de Libération de la Bretagne" in French), thus the content of the song is not related to politics and Breton nationalism.
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