He released some forty albums over this period, composing the music and the majority of the lyrics. He released many hit singles, particularly between and the mid-seventies. Along with Serge Gainsbourg, Jacques Brel and Georges Brassens, he is considered one of the greatest French language singer-songwriters of all time, but unlike Brel and Gainsbourg, or even Charles Aznavour, his songs are very little known in the English-speaking world.
He mixed revolt with love and melancholy, sophisticated lyricism with slang and shouts, and rhyming verse with prose monologues. He moved from music-hall to symphonic music and spoken word, breaking free from the traditional song structure, inventing his own dramatic and innovative musical territory.
His uncle, former violinist and secretary at the Casino, used to bring him to performances and rehearsals that took place at the Monte Carlo Opera. He remained there for eight long years of severe discipline and boredom. At fourteen, he composed a three-voice mass and a melody on the poem Soleils couchants Sunsets by Paul Verlaine.
He graduated from high school at Monaco. In , he came to Paris to study law. Not interested at all in political and social euphoria around him huge electoral winning of the Popular Front, an alliance of left-wing movements, general strike more than 1,5 million workers in MayβJune , resulting in the negotiation of the Matignon agreements, one of the cornerstone of social rights in France , he perfected his piano technique all by himself and read a lot.
His vocation as a composer got stronger after his demobilization. His first personal texts probably date from this year.
