album rating: ★★★★☆
Genre: Chanson française / chanson poétique. Fernande is the thirteenth album (in the French catalogue) by Georges Brassens (born Sète, Hérault, 1921 – Saint-Gély-du-Fesc, 1981), the poet, songwriter and guitarist who is one of the foundational figures of 20th-century French culture. Brassens was a singular phenomenon in French popular music: a self-taught guitarist from the Mediterranean south who set complex, formally demanding verse to music, performing with his guitar and upright bass in an intimate style that remained unchanged throughout his career. His lyrics drew on a vast literary inheritance — medieval poetry, Villon, Hugo, Verlaine, Richepin — while being simultaneously colloquial, anarchist, erotic, tender and savagely ironic. Like his previous albums, Fernande was released without a title; it is identified by the name of its opening track. The album was produced by Philips and released in October 1972, with sleeve photography by Jacques Aubert and liner notes by the novelist René Fallet, who had been one of Brassens's closest friends since his early years in Paris. The eleven tracks include the title song 'Fernande' (a ribald tribute to an accommodating woman, which became part of the repertoire of French medical students' choral societies); 'Stances à un cambrioleur' (dedicated to those who burgled his house in Crespières when it was put up for sale); 'La Ballade des gens qui sont nés quelque part' (an attack on chauvinism, xenophobia and comfortable stupidity); 'Mourir pour des idées' (a pacifist meditation on those who are prepared to die for their convictions, and those who encourage them); 'Les Passantes' (an elegy to the women glimpsed and never met); and 'À l'ombre des maris' (about women who take pleasure in destroying their lovers). All songs are written and composed by Brassens.
Label: Philips (France), released October 1972. Catalogue: Philips 6332 116 (LP).
Producer: Not individually credited; produced under the Philips label. All arrangements: Georges Brassens (guitar) with Pierre Nicolas (upright bass), as was his customary format.
Recording studio: Not individually specified in publicly available sources.
Critical reception: Fernande was received, as were all Brassens albums, as a major cultural event rather than merely a musical release. The French literary and critical press treated his records as poetic publications rather than pop products. The French Wikipedia notes that 'La Ballade des gens qui sont nés quelque part' attacks 'those he considers happy imbeciles, chauvinists, xenophobes or racists', and that 'Mourir pour des idées' presents 'a meditation on those who die for their convictions'. The album was certified gold in 1976 for 100,000 copies sold and platinum in 1980 for 400,000.
Commercial success: Fernande was certified gold in France in 1976 (100,000 copies sold) and platinum in 1980 (400,000 copies). The album was issued in France, Canada, Japan, Spain and Germany. Along with his previous albums, it has been reissued many times in various formats. Georges Brassens was elected as one of the four greatest poets of the French language by a vote of French and Belgian secondary school students in 1967.
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