"Beyond My Control" | ||||||||||||||||
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Single by Mylène Farmer | ||||||||||||||||
from the album L'Autre... | ||||||||||||||||
B-side | Ya ya version | |||||||||||||||
Released | 13 April 1992 | |||||||||||||||
Format | CD single, CD maxi, 7" single, 12" maxi, cassette, digital download (since 2005) |
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Recorded | 1991, France | |||||||||||||||
Genre | Darkwave, synthpop | |||||||||||||||
Length | 5:24 | |||||||||||||||
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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"Beyond My Control" is a 1991 song recorded by French singer-songwriter Mylène Farmer. It was the fourth single from her third studio album L'Autre... and was released in May 1992. The song probably remains well known for its music video that caused controversy and was censored at the time because of its sexual and violent content. It achieved minor success in terms of sales, even though it reached the top ten in France and Belgium.
The fickle and ambiguous song "Pas de doute", already scheduled as the third single from the album L'Autre..., would have been released as the fourth single, but was finally replaced by "Beyond My Control", which was remixed to be more commercial.
The song was inspired by two characters in the 1782 French epistolary novel Les Liaisons dangereuses, written by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos: the Marquise de Merteuil and the Vicomte de Valmont. In the song, the voice heard on the chorus of the song which repeats "It's beyond my control" is in fact a sample of John Malkovich's voice from the film "Dangerous Liaisons" by Stephen Frears.
For the first time throughout Farmer's career, a CD single was released among the various formats. At the time of the song's release, the radio NRJ prepared a 7" maxi with a collector picture disc in a limited edition (50 units) and containing a new remix.
The song deals with self-control, love, death and the betrayal of the beloved man. Farmer tells her own story from the Valmont's sentence ("it's beyond my control"): that of a woman who kills her unfaithful lover after a night of love.
The video was directed by Laurent Boutonnat who also wrote the screenplay based on the book "Les Liaisons dangereuses", by Choderlos de Laclos. It was his last video for Farmer before that of "Les Mots", nine years after. The video was shot for two days at Studio Sets in Stains (where the video of "Plus grandir" was already shot in 1985) and cost about only 45,000 euros (the budget was limited because the film Giorgino was in preparation). This Requiem Publishing and Heathcliff SA production features Farmer, Frédéric Lagache, who was the puppeteer in the video of "Sans contrefaçon" and who there plays her flighty lover, and Christophe Danchaud, a dancer of Farmer's tours, who replaces this one for the bare scenes. Photographer Marianne Rosensthiel who witnessed the shooting of the video, said that the white dress worn by Farmer was custom made by a seamstress.