Two women in one : Lio is the nymphet shaking her booty and the feminist, proud and loud, angry and dazzling, free and maybe not so easy. Lio the pop star on the A-side, Wanda la saudade on the B-side. Born in Portugal and raised in Brussels, Lio made her name in France as a Lolita singing smash hits, such as Banana Split and Amoureux solitaires. She soon forced the record industry to take her seriously, though, refusing to become a marketing product. “I pay a high price for speaking my mind. I don’t want to destroy anything, just for us to talk as genuine equals. It doesn’t happen. The business is primed to grab power, and the artist has to fit in with what the business wants, what power decrees.  Some people are fine with that. I’m not pliable enough.” She praises choruses that bring people together, and sings for an optimism conducive to changing the world, alert to what’s at stake in feminism, and the ageism, which also claims her as a victim.

Extracts:

“The business doesn’t want folks like me. It doesn’t want folks who refuse to put their name on a song with a star like Alain Bashung because he changed a comma, telling him, “Now, buddy, if you want me to sing it, I get a co-writing credit.” And Duval jumps in, “Hey, you changed a comma, it’s not as good now, and you want credit. Just no.“

“I think all of us are two, three or four people in one. I think we’re all humanity at once.“

“I got lucky. But it soon became tricky, with my reputation going ahead of me, and it wasn’t a reputation that did me justice, because I’m a team player, I’m someone who stands in solidarity, I’m enthusiastic, and I want projects to be a joyous experience for everyone. For me, joy is the key to creativity, not misery. In that respect, I’m swimming against the tide. In show business in Paris, people think it’s about misery and suffering. Look at how they love Michel Houellebecq, who’s so into despair and misery he lost all his teeth. Paris likes it grim. It’s very Parisian. The provinces don’t like grim, not at all. They like joy, being together, choruses where everybody can join in. Paris looks down on that. They say Paris is a feast, but a feast only if you’re wallowing in the mire.“

“Because I’m clearly struggling through the tunnel of being a woman in her fifties, nobody wants to hire me or give me any kind of job, and I don’t do social media. It’s not in my DNA, you see? I feel very disoriented and, to be honest, for the last few years I’ve felt downgraded. I’m not part of the internet generation, and I can see it making my life terribly complicated. Even so, I truly don’t want to get involved, to update myself. I’d like to meet people who can take me with them, like taking a little child by the hand, except they’d be taking an old lady by the hand. An old bag who just wasn’t born with it. Today, everything goes so, so fast, much faster than before. We weren’t downgraded so fast a century ago. But since we entered the era of virtual technology, people are downgraded faster than ever.“

“I’m downgraded. She’s 57, screw that! They want Angel this or Clara that, girls under thirty. And when you realize that, you think, Now is not the time. Maybe it never will be my time again.“

“For me, structure is a real battle. I just don’t work that way. My way is a big round, the big picture. Deep inside, there’s something that’s not at all straight. And that’s why I feel increasingly ill at ease in the virtual world. Virtual and virile have the same root, don’t forget. Virile is the man, it’s machismo. And virtual is the disembodied. So where are the women? We are being denied the strongest aspect of our humanity, which is the body. In any case, wherever there is monotheism, wherever there is one, two is excluded. That’s why I’m a fervent atheist.” “The life force, what is means to be a friend, is to choose the urge for life. If someone says life is easy or beautiful, they’re lying to you. There is nothing better than life on this earth. It’s the gift, the present. And life is thrilling. You can make something magnificent out of it.“