How Françoise Hardy became a French icon despite self-doubt
'I couldn't imagine I'd be here 60 years later,' Hardy says in a Q interview
This interview originally aired on June 5, 2018.
When Françoise Hardy was a teenager in the late 1950s, her father gifted her a guitar. As soon as she learned a couple chords, she began writing three to four songs a week alone in her bedroom. Wondering if she was any good, she went to an open audition at a record label. A part of her wanted them to confirm her worst suspicions and tell her she should give up — but they didn't. A few months later, she had a worldwide hit in France.
This is one of the stories Hardy tells in her memoir The Despair of Monkeys and Other Trifles. Today, Hardy is remembered as a defining figure in French music who's worked with big names such as Serge Gainsbourg, Leonard Cohen and Iggy Pop.
In this rare English interview with Q's Tom Power, Hardy looks back on her early doubtful days, clears up some rumours about her past and tells an unbelievable story about Bob Dylan.
The full interview with Françoise Hardy is available on our podcast, Q with Tom Power. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Interview produced by Chris Trowbridge.