Jeanne-Marie Sens

Jeanne-Marie Sens (born 8 December 1937 in Paris) is a French singer, songwriter, author and editor.

Jeanne-Marie Sens began recording in the early 1970s, including adopting the Giani Esposito song Les Clowns in 1972, released the following year by the Warner label. Her inspiration is at times melancholic, poetic and refractory in the face of an increasingly dehumanized world. In 1973 her protest song En plein cœur, in which her lyrics are set to music by Jean-Pierre Pouret, achieved success and notoriety. The following year brought her another hit with the prescient and sad portrait of a child cooped up in the city: L’Enfant du 92e, for which she co-wrote the lyrics with Lowery, set to the music of Belgian singer-interpreter Pierre Rapsat.

Jeanne-Marie Sens gives the impression of preferring to live in a world of imagination and fantasy, more beautiful than reality, and the many records she aimed at a child audience tend to confirm this. A song from an album of children's songs, Chansons pour de vrai, Volume 2 (1977) brought her the greatest popular success: Tant et tant de temps (So many times), with music composed by Jean-Pierre Castelain. From then on she worked almost exclusively with this composer. Despite their successful and talented association, however, her popularity began to decline.

In 1981, she signed a plea for acceptance of homosexuality, Il a la tête d’un poète, and incorporated the petition created that year by Jean-Pierre Castelain for the coming presidential elections, Je donnerai ma voix with a text by Maxime Piolot. After that she ceased making albums. Her last two 45s have the last beautiful works of the Sens-Castelain partnership: Au jardin un dimanche (1983), and Jalousie and Donne-moi ton sourire (1984).

In the early 1990s she and Hubert Tonka co-founded the Sens & Tonka publishing house.

Source: Article "Jeanne-Marie Sens" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.