"À quoi je sers..." | |||||||||
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Single by Mylène Farmer | |||||||||
from the album En Concert | |||||||||
B-side | "La Veuve noire" | ||||||||
Released | July 1989 | ||||||||
Format |
CD maxi, 7" single, 7" maxi, digital download (since 2005) |
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Recorded | 1989, France | ||||||||
Genre | Darkwave | ||||||||
Length | 4:35 | ||||||||
Label | Polydor | ||||||||
Writer(s) | Lyrics: Mylène Farmer Music: Laurent Boutonnat |
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Producer(s) | Laurent Boutonnat | ||||||||
Mylène Farmer singles chronology | |||||||||
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"À quoi je sers..." (English: "What good am I...") is a 1989 song recorded by French singer-songwriter Mylène Farmer. The single was a new song when it was released in July 1989, being not available on Farmer's studio albums, but only in a live version on En Concert. Marking the end of Farmer's first period of work, it hit a moderate success in France.
In May 1989, Farmer began her first tour throughout France, which was a great success. Farmer would probably wrote the lyrics of "À quoi je sers..." during this tour, as she was incredibly surprised by her success on stage and she expressed doubts about the direction of her musical career. The singer and her partner Laurent Boutonnat decided to record this song as new single, with another unpublished song on the B-side, "La Veuve noire", whose music is very similar to that of "À quoi je sers...". Both songs were recorded fairly quickly. However, due to the success of the previous single "Sans logique", "À quoi je sers..." was not released before July 1989. Little broadcast on radio, the song appeared as a synthesis of the singer's work and marked the end of the first period of Farmer's career.
French author Erwan Chuberre said "À quoi je sers..." is "a song with desperate lyrics but a dance rhythm that incorporates one of the favorite phrases of depressive people". The pessimistic song is about madness, the "desire of suicide and the impression of the futility of the life". The theme, as well as the beginning of each verse ("Poussière vivante") and other words in the lyrics ("Chaque heure demande pour qui pour quoi se redresser") were inspired by 1942 book L'Apprentissage de la ville by French writer Luc Dietrich, whose books are known to have a morbid tone. About the writing of the song, Farmer said in an interview: "I wrote "À quoi je sers..." shortly after the beginning of the tour. Because it was the question on my mind. (...). About this : to scream out loud what others will not dare do." According to the biographer Bernard Violet, the song which tackles "a new fantasy, self-destruction", is "filled with a special symbolism describing the passage from life to death" and "illustrates the strange torpor in which the singer seems to take refuge in the real life".