The tube match (36/40) – Men who pour out on their adopted child: one must leave it, the other begins to forge links. Two very moving tubes.
Paternity changes a man. And when it comes to taking on the role of male figure with a child from a previous union, responsibility becomes even stronger. If the declarations of paternal love are numerous (the most famous remaining “the little boy” of Serge Reggiani), the songs devoted to the stepfather are more rare. So more precious. On the menu (child) of this 36th duel, “the child of another” by Serge Lama and “Beau-Papa” by Vianney.
This title is loved fans of Lama. Nestled in the excellent album “I am sick” (1973), “The child of another” is a jewel of melancholy. We hear the distress of a stepfather left by the mother of the little boy whom he had learned to love. As often with Lama, the subtlety of words tenfold emotion. “It is she who left, but it is he who is missing, this very little boy who was not mine,” says the artist. And to throw, pathetic: “Children are the fruit of women, not men. And whatever the one who germinates the apple, the father for the child is the one who is there. Lama imagines herself in twenty years, when the child who became an adult will only be a memory for him. What remains of the ephemeral stepfather? “Nothing will replace him […] I am helpless as a father who has just lost his child. And I am unhappy. His (beautiful) son his battle. Alice Dona’s intimate melody – throbbing guitar, almost as a nursery rhyme – strengthens the gravity of the subject. The album will triumph, exceeding one million copies sold, and the song will become cult.
Vianney rhyme
In 2020, Vianney set a decisive moment in his life to music: the adoption of the daughter of her partner, the cellist Catherine Robert. He makes it a song, a real hymn to filial love. “There is not only the genes that make families. Humans who love each other are enough. Like Lama, he chooses the rhyme form, a refined and tender melody. But his text also takes on manifest accents for the status of stepfather: “No I will never steal the place of the first who told you I love you. On your face we see his face. And that’s how you are beautiful […] I was not waiting. I will not leave it. Even without the same blood, we will love each other. The sincerity of the subject and the fragility of his voice give this title an authenticity which very quickly made it a standard of French song, hailed by its peers.
Two songs to say the place of the stepfather, but only one takes the heart. Again, Serge Lama triumphs. If Vianney’s song is not lacking in tenderness or truth, the pen and the interpretation of one of our greatest poets make “the child of another” much more than a song: an overwhelming moment of emotion where everyone can recognize themselves. He is sick, completely sick! And us too. Serge Lama, our friend, our master.
