"Allan" | ||||
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Single by Mylène Farmer | ||||
from the album En Concert | ||||
B-side | "Psychiatric" | |||
Released | December 1989 | |||
Format |
CD maxi, 7" single, 7" maxi, digital download (since 2005) |
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Recorded | 1989 | |||
Genre | Synthpop | |||
Length |
4:46 (album version) 6:50 (live album version) 5:14 (live single version) |
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Label | Polydor | |||
Songwriter(s) | Lyrics: Mylène Farmer Music: Laurent Boutonnat |
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Producer(s) | Laurent Boutonnat | |||
Mylène Farmer singles chronology | ||||
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Ainsi soit je... track listing | ||||
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"Allan" is a 1988 song recorded by French singer-songwriter Mylène Farmer from her second album Ainsi soit je.... It was the first single from her first live album En Concert and was released in December 1989. The lyrics clearly refer to a fairly tale by Edgar Allan Poe as they mentioned one of his characters. Although the single met success in discothèques, its sales remained relatively low in comparison with Farmer's other singles.
The song "Allan" was chosen as the first single from the 1989 concert before the live album En Concert was released. Unlike Farmer's previous singles, the B-side of the vinyl was not another live song, but the first version of "Psychiatric" (the 'new beat remix'), which appeared two years later on the album "L'Autre...".
"Allan" is a tribute to Edgar Allan Poe, an American poet, that Farmer is very appreciative and that she has evoked in many interviews. One verse of the song containing the word "Ligeia" which refers to the name of Poe's fairy tale published in 1837 in the review The American Museum. Farmer also sings "Pauvres poupées / Qui vont qui viennent", which is an excerpt from "Ligeia".
In the refrain, the singer slips into the skin of Lady Rowena, one of the heroines of the fairy tale, who died but was reborn in the guise of another woman. In the lyrics, Farmer addresses this death woman as if she was her blood sister. Thus the singer "appropriates Poe's literary work giving another dimension, her own". The French magazine Top Secrets tried to give an interpretation of the lyrics, noting several references to Poe's life in the song.