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By Joël Virgel
“Amour Amer means bittersweet love. A lot of bitter things are also healthy for you. Even in love, there can be a bitter taste. I try to just be myself, not to make anything contrived, just say what I’m going for and what’s left are real and honest stories.
There’s classical influence and like Chopin and Brahms. I used to be in the classical choir, so the vocal arrangements; the layering of voices come from what I learned in classical choir. I love classical music. That’s the music I listen to the most of the day. I cannot listen to everything all day long, only classical, but all the 60’s Brazilian artists, I try to have them in my backpack.”
“Losing Me”
I am inspired by 60’s Brazilian music because it’s melancholic and joyous at the same time. Even when you are in a sad situation, after a certain time you may laugh about it. In any memory there’s something sweet, even in the bad ones. That’s what I wanted to show–to put everything together: sadness, joy, and melancholy. Make the best of everything. That’s why, somehow, if you look at the title, you may say, “Wow, this is really sad!” But it’s not. Not necessarily losing you, but you losing me. There’s irony to it.
“Kiss Me”
“Kiss Me” is a story about a triangle. A woman who doesn’t want to share. You’re with somebody and somebody else comes in the game. One person always knows what’s going on and the other person doesn’t have a clue. She is the person who doesn’t want to share. It’s basically somebody who knows that a lover is going with somebody else and she’s not into it at all.
“Carnal Manners”
“Carnal Manners” is a song about yoga. I’m a yoga instructor as well and I create music for yogis. I go on tour in the U.S. and I play for somebody like Bhagavan Das, Krishna Das, and Wah! I wanted to make a song about the yoga world because I think it’s very sexy somehow. There’s French influence but I’m was also inspired by Nat King Cole, Stevie Wonder and all the great artists. I try to channel them to bring my self up.
I was born in the Caribbean and grew up in France. When I was growing up, I really clung to Brazilian music. When I got older and I started studying music, I found out that in rhythms there are a lot of similarities between music from Brazil and music from Guadeloupe. The reason why is because Brazil was involved in slavery, so there was a big importing-exporting process. They all came by Guadeloupe.
“Femme Fatale”
“Femme Fatale” is a Velvet Underground song and a rock classic. It’s there because this girl dumped me. You always think that you’re on top of your game, and it’s not going to happen to you, but it happened to me. I always loved that song and after a month after she dumped me I thought, “It’s time for me to record that song.” I had to put the relationship in a drawer. The song helped me heal myself.
“Bitter Suite”
It’s about people who have a great smile, and when a woman eats away at you, she does it with this great smile. She tells you something negative, with a smile on her face. The smile that you loved turns sour. The type of smile that hides something else. The same smile means different things, but you never notice that at first.
“Anais Nin”
“Anais Nin” is when we put people on a pedestal like when you fall in love with somebody and she/he is the biggest thing you have ever met. “She was my goddess”…this person was everything. The French have realized that it’s all the individual… “She’s just human.” We decide that she/he is flawless, but once you live with this person, we realize she/he is human and nothing else. Whatever we want, we project it onto the person and we make them bigger than they are.
“Samba E Amor”
“Samba E Amor” is a cover from Chico Buarque, a brilliant and very famous Brazilian artist. What I’m singing are not real lyrics, it’s made up. All of the words of the song are done in an imitated language. I wanted to do a translation of the song in English, but when we went to the studio, we didn’t have time to do the translation. So I said, “I’m just going to fake it.” We recorded it; I took it home to translate and to finish my vocal track. When I finished it, I decided to keep it as it was. It’s an emotional thing, because people will feel something about it, even if there is no coherent language to transport it. You use the music to draw emotion out of people without explicitly telling the story. Even when you listen to a song in a foreign language, it can convey tangible human emotions. I can listen to a song in Chinese and cry. I don’t know what it’s about, but I know how it makes me feel. There’s an emotional level to music that is universal.
“Ti Amo Troppo”
“Ti Amo Troppo” in Italian is saying to somebody “I love you too much.” How can you love somebody too much? I don’t get it myself.
“Midnight”
This song was written by a friend about a love affair. He was going out with this huge runway model, and they broke up. He was extremely depressed, so he wrote this song to heal himself. I thought it was an amazing song because you always find yourself in the middle of the night thinking of the person you wish you were with. These are moments of intense loneliness. It’s in the night that everything is so quiet; there are no distractions. The night is just comforting.
“This Way”
“This Way” is just a sweet love song, just enjoying somebody’s presence.
“La Chanson De Slogan”
It’s a Gainsbourg song. Basically, the original song is telling him you are rude, you are crude, you are indecent, and he answers with “you still love me”. I reversed that because, at the time, I was really tired of the girl-rock songs, like Alanis Morrissette, trashing guys, so I decided to do my own version of it. I’m saying to this woman all of those words and she’s saying you still love me. It’s true, because even when we fight, we still love these people. We love everything, including the flaws.
In France, music is everywhere. I really love Serge Gainsbourg. There are only two artists who I cried for when they died–Serge Gainsbourg and Astor Piazola (a tango musician from Argentina). I love tango because tango is so emotional.
“Close Your Eyes”
This is a hope song about believing. All the things we go through, if we believe, then everything is going to be okay because that’s all we have. It’s about faith. Even when you are in the deepest of misery, even if you go lower than where you are, the only thing that is going to pull you out is if you have faith. In music, in life, in the world, it’s faith in everything. It’s the only thing we have, really.
“Won’t Take No”
It’s kind of weird how I wrote that song. I was in New York a long time ago and I just wouldn’t take no for an answer. It works everywhere.
Joël Virgel’s Amour Amer will be released on
Electric Monkey Records January 13.
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