Credit.- Dansons, a twilight ballad written by Jean-Jacques Goldman in 2020 for Celine Dion, has just been released. What does it say about the latest mega star of the planet? What does it say about us, who are willing to pay fortunes to be in the same immense concert hall as her?
Power and Modesty
The enthusiasm was spectacular just a few days ago when a poster and social media campaign announced her return to the stage for next September. During the ticket sales, 7 million people connected for 350,000 available seats. Would the Rolling Stones do better? Will Rosalia do better someday? For now, the Canadian singer that France has seen grow up (remember her childhood appearances with Michel Drucker) is sweeping everything. And she emphasizes her power by quietly releasing a song just recorded, both with great modesty and great evocative power. It’s a ballad, rather slow and without great emphasis (that’s for the modesty), but written by Jean-Jacques Goldman (that’s for the evocative power, as Goldman remains one of the most appreciated personalities by the French while being one of the most discreet, having almost stopped his career – one can understand, by the way: why do more after so many successes?).
Last Refuge
Six years later, the song resonates with the era of the virus, Celine Dion’s illness, the loss of her husband, and the current state of the world, which has never seemed so close to exploding, imploding, or being on the brink of “abysses” to quote one of the song’s expressions. Profoundly sad, carried by a piano and violins, the song is led by the deep and calm voice, almost flat, of the singer, not pushing the highs or the performance, even though one can feel she is holding back, sometimes trying to raise her voice, to make it soar as she usually does. The tone, sometimes, almost resembles that of Jean-Jacques Goldman as if the ranges had been softened, one soothing the other, almost exacerbating. The song is titled Dansons but it’s neither Let’s Dance nor Dancing Queen – instead, it unveils quite the opposite of hedonism, of letting go. This Dansons rather speaks of a form of sadness, of distance also with the times, like a last refuge: dance as a place to exist, to remain safe, saved. Listening to it, so tense, the question is full of wondering how Celine Dion will hold all her concerts, with her health known to be fragile. Will it be like Dalida to “die on stage”? Or rather, as Jean-Jacques Goldman sang, to “go to the end of my dreams”? Whatever it is, what Celine Dion says about us, probably, is our common desire, on the edge of the abyss, to continue to dance, that is, to find a renewed meaning in our ways of being together. Even if it means paying 500 euros for a concert ticket?
