Singer Goldman composes new song for a school play in France

French pop star Jean-Jacques Goldman agreed to compose an original song for her school play after a school teacher wrote to him about the importance of the work’s theme.

Nadia Bachmar, 50, from the Ecole Louis Pergaud primary school in Vénissieux (Rhône), convinced Mr Goldman to write the song after exchanging letters with him for years.

She came up with the idea for the play in 2019. It features Resistance soldiers during World War Two and highlights how Republican values help to shape French citizens.

The play had students sing Envole-moi and Je te donne, two popular songs from Mr Goldman’s catalogue.

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Résistant

The new song, called Résistant, was composed after Mr Goldman was sent a video of Ms Bachmar’s play and was moved both by the perform-ance and by the values it espoused.

The lyrics, read by Mr Goldman over his own melody, are taken from the work of Armenian poet Missak Manouchian, who moved to France in 1925 and was executed by the Nazis in 1944 for his role in the Resistance.

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The song ends with Louis Pergaud school students singing in unison.

It has been posted on YouTube but has not yet been performed live.

Ms Bachmar hopes a new version of her play, featuring the song, willbe performed on May 8 next year to mark the 80th anniversary of the World War Two Armistice.

Personal correspondence

Mr Goldman, who was profiled in The Connexion in May, has shunned interviews for decades. He released his last album in 2001 and retired in 2002.

“He is very accessible, paradoxically. He is very at peace with his unwanted celebrity and fandom,” said Ms Bachmar, who was surprised he answered her first letter, sent in 2016.

“I just wanted to tell him ‘thank you’ for all the goodness he has given my life. I told him about my childhood in Vénissieux and my gratitude to have lived in an open and tolerant society such as France,” she said.

“He answered it and wrote some very personal, private things.”

One letter led to another until Ms Bachmar asked him in 2019 if he would agree to compose a song for her play.

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'My little troupe of resistance fighters'

In the meantime, Ms Bachmar asked Michael Jones, a Welsh touring guitarist for Mr Goldman who lives in Lyon and whose father landed on D-Day, to sing along to Je te donne in her play.

The school’s director taped the performance and sent it to Mr Goldman, who promptly called Ms Bachmar in May 2022.

“I heard a ‘Hello? This is Jean-Jacques’. I was searching my mind but did not recognise the name. And then the penny dropped,” she said.

They spoke for half an hour about the values of the French Republic and school.

Ms Bachmar’s students have now moved to higher classes but she hopes the play will stay with them.

“I want my students to grow up in the same country I grew up in – a Republic of equal opportunity that welcomes each and every one of them,” she said.

“I call them ‘My little troupe of resistance fighters’.”