Monday, April 04, 2005
Speeches to music on CD
Jax
A speech made by former French foreign minister Dominique de Villepin before the outbreak of the Iraq war has been set to music and released on CD.
A Better World by musician Arnaud Fleurent-Didier set Villepin's plea for a peaceful resolution to a synthesised backing track.
Villepin, now France's interior minister, praised the record as "an original and personal project".
He made the speech at the United Nations in 2003.
"In this temple of the United Nations we are the guardians of an ideal, we are the guardians of a conscience," the track begins.
Speaking to French arts magazine Technikart, the politician said the record expressed a continuing ideal.
"France cannot remain silent in certain circumstances if it is to remain true to itself and the universal principles which it has always defended," he said.
Villepin is not the first politician whose words have been set to music.
Last year, former UK prime minister Lady Thatcher's speeches were released on a CD box set, with one accompanied by acid house music.
And veteran Labour MP Tony Benn had a decade's worth of speeches set to downbeat electronica in 2003.
