The tube match (21/40) – Serge Lama creates “I’m sick” without too much success. Before Dalida, a polytraumatized love, sublime it and put it back in the race.
What is the destiny of masterpieces. Often not much. Sometimes there is the singer who does not believe in his own creation: did Michel Sardou not tell his writing companions that he did not believe in this story of an Irish marriage? “The lakes of Connemara” have become its greatest tube! There is often the public who prefers a success to a masterful work: the French have acclaimed “there is only one ch’veu” at the “Bal des Laze” by Michel Polnareff before time corrects this infamy. Finally, there are the ignored songs whose resumption by another artist offers him a flame return. This is the case of our duel of the day: “I am sick”, created by Serge Lama, and popularized by Dalida.
The thwarted loves have always made excellent songs. In the early 1970s, Serge Lama was torn. He is married, but in love with Michèle Potier. Dry at the creation level, the interpreter of “adventures in adventures” drags his spleen to a dinner with her friend and composer, Alice Dona. “A small sentence moves me more particularly, that Serge persists in using several times, as if to support his story and making me aware of the gravity of his situation. “I’m sick … I’m sick …”, she recalls in her autobiography. She rushes to the piano, composes the melody and submits it to Lama. Who finds his pen. “I don’t dream anymore, I no longer smoke. I don’t even have a story anymore […] I no longer want to live my life. My life stops when you go. The interpretation of Serge Lama is magnificent. Each word illustrating its decline is supported by a voice that is both poignant and powerful. Dona’s melody is tragically simple – piano notes and a slight guitar before the ropes come to pack everything. “You deprived me of all my songs. You emptied me with all my words. And my heart is completely sick, surrounded by barricades. Hear you, I’m sick “
The record company does not believe in the song, but still incorporates it under the pressure of Lama in the album “Rouge” of the artist released in 1973. The public prefers “the little women of Pigalle”. “I am sick” could have known the same fate as “July 15 at 3 pm”. But…
Even more desperate version
Another big injured in love falls on the title and decides to sing it. Dalida, not yet a Queen of Disco, but already very tormented seizes the same year of “I am sick”. It does not change the text in any way and very slightly modifies the orchestration of the melody. The lyrics stick perfectly and she delivers an even more desperate version. “As with a rock, like a sin, I’m hanging on you, I am tired. I am exhausted to pretend to be happy when they are there. Dalida’s voice is overwhelming especially when you know the artist’s end. “This love kills me. If it continues, I will die alone with me. Near my radio like a silly kid listening to my own voice that will sing I am sick. The public does not miss this second chance and triumphantly welcomes the song. “It is thanks to you if” I am sick “has become a success,” thanks in a program by Michel Drucker Serge Lama in 1978. Radios spend half of the Dalida version song, the other half Lama version.
Who wins this match? The man deconstructs and broken? Or the woman full of despair? You cannot decide as the original and the recovery are inseparable. Serge Lama agreed to us in 2003. While he had never sang in duet with Dalida during his lifetime, he granted our dream by taking the two version. The singer has the voice even more broken by emotion. It’s sublime. Necessarily sublime.