Those Dancing Days Are Gone
 
 
 

Born in 1967 in Turin, Italy to a concert pianist (mother) and an industrialist and opera composer, Carla Bruni moved with her family to France at the age of 5 to flee the Red Brigades terrorist group.

She learned to play the piano and guitar at a young age, inheriting her family’s love of music, which surrounded her from her earliest childhood. Also passionate about literature and writing, she composed songs in her spare time.

After studying architecture, Bruni embarked on a modelling career in 1985, attaining super model status and becoming the symbol for top fashion houses until 1997.

In the late 1990s, Bruni changed direction when she decided to launch a music career, first as a songwriter for Julien Clerc, for whom she wrote several songs for his album Si j’étais elle (If I Were Her), then as a singer-songwriter-composer for her first album, Quelqu’un m’a dit (Someone Told Me), released in 2002.

Composed with the help of Louis Bertignac, who also produced the album, Quelqu’un m’a dit was an instant hit. Acclaimed by critics, the album sold two million copies.

In 2003, Bruni won the Prix Raoul Breton, awarded by SACEM (French association of songwriters and composers) to recognize and encourage an up-and-coming songwriter or composer. She was awarded the Victoire de la Musique for Best Female Artist the same year.

On 15 January 2007, Bruni released her second album, No Promises, which sets English poems to music. Among the poets she selected were Yeats, Auden, Emily Dickinson, Christina Rossetti, Walter de la Mare and Dorothy Parker. This second work, which sold more than 400,000 copies worldwide, shot to the top of the charts in both France and Europe.

Her third album was released in 2008 and is entitled Comme si de rien n’était (As If Nothing Happened), the title of a photographic work by her brother Virginio Bruni Tedeschi that appears in the album’s booklet.

Produced by Dominique Blanc-Francard, the album comprises 14 titles, most of which were written and composed by Bruni with the exception of La Possibilité d’une Ile, a poem by French author Michel Houellebecq and set to music by Bruni; Déranger les Pierres, with lyrics by Bruni set to music by Julien Clerc; and two previously performed pieces, You Belong To Me, a title popularized by Bob Dylan and featured in the original film score of Natural Born Killers, and Il Vecchio e Il Bambino, written by Italian anarchist Francesco Guccini.

The Official Carla Bruni Website
 
The Official Carla Bruni MySpace Page