Hymne à la Liberté

It was a song that was fundamentally an homage, a hymn to liberty. It was: Liberate yourself, in the context of communist oppression, but it could have for any oppression, fascist, or in any form, and I was saying to women, finally, “Seize power”, dare to impose on us your ukases.

All of this, it was a play on phonetics as well, I thought of the Caucasus Mountains, evidently it’s the first word that comes to mind when we think of the East – Dare to cause us Caucasus, Dare to impose on us your Ukases, dare, dare…

So from this foundation, Alain added on “Josephine.” So Josephine, it would not be until much later that I learn that Josephine Bashung is the sister of his father in the Alsace village of Wingersheim. She was a woman who we could say today, who we would describe, as a liberated woman, which was, actually, in the countryside of the 40’s and 50’s, was not so much well regarded. She was apparently a liberated woman who didn’t give a damn about the rumor mill, a strong personality who certainly greatly impressed Alain.

So this woman, somehow she connected with, here it’s really [each of us contributing] 50-50, all of a sudden myself I find “Dare” without him ever having spoken to me of his aunt, and all of a sudden she comes into this song, because if ever there was someone who dared, it was the actual Josephine Bashung of Wingersheim.

In the end it’s an engaging song, and in a good sense an anti… anti-dictatorial song, and pro-, extremely feminist, so as to say, go on, dare, it is you who will change history, we are counting on you…