I always lived with guitarists. When they would leave, I would just pick up their acoustic guitars and start doing finger picking and write.

Lou Doillon

Categorized in : Writing Guitar Acoustics

In a modern world where a majority of women say, 'I don't need you, I've got my money, I've got my stuff,' I say, 'I desperately need men.' My whole album is a tribute to men. It takes a man in me to tell you that I'm on my knees for men.

knees i-dont-need-you men

I listen to a variety of music. The only common point is strong lyrics; I'm more obsessed with lyrics than music. I need to hear a form of truth, and if it's a hard truth, even better.

variety-of-music strong needs

I was kind of ashamed of my bourgeois family as a teenager, I guess - I had dreadlocks, shopped in thrift stores and pretended I had no money. At that time, I would have spat on a girl who was buying Yves Saint Laurent.

teenager girl buying

It's true that the biggest value of life is that it's going to stop. I was thinking when I was in New York the last time that all that we see that has importance is man-made. It isn't nature-made. And when I was looking through the window, looking at New York, I was so moved by humanity's desire for immortality-because that's what it is.

desire window thinking

Luckily, I was raised by a kind of gypsy family, which is why I always get along better with people who worked in circuses than with kids of other actors. My mom was so carefree with us in a beautiful way. We were used to sleeping anywhere.

mom sleep beautiful

The whole point of art school is that you're going to be able to have nudes all day long and a teacher who is there to move you. It's great.

teacher art moving

Music came as the best thing for me at home, where no one can tell you anything. For years I was so closed, wanting to do it exactly like I had it in my head, because this would be the only place that was superpersonal.

would-be home years

I wish I could be more serious about painting. I think there may be something going on there and I should pursue it. I'm very old-fashioned - even with the music. I realize, while I have so much respect for the kookiness of people who go for it, who paint with their eyes closed, I am superclassical.

eye people thinking

In England you laugh at yourselves, in France we laugh at others. by Lou Doillon

In England you laugh at yourselves, in France we laugh at others.

france england laughing

I think I was pretty much hated in France. The French press ignored me. There was a movement when the children of celebrities faced strong animosity.

strong children thinking

My mother always spoke to me in English, so it's technically my maternal language, and it became a kind of private language - I was happy that I could speak in English to my mum and the majority of people wouldn't understand it.

majority mother people

I was shocked when I looked at art schools in France. There's only one left that does anatomy. Now they do video. They do editing. I would go to film school if I wanted to do video and editing. In art school, it's only new mediums. It's three-dimensional or computer. I found that shocking. No nudes.

computer art school

I'm a very compulsive person, so I spend most of my time drawing or writing my diary, patching things up and carving bits of wood - I've carved two of my guitars.

guitar writing two

I try to not listen to all the girls I admire musically - like Nina Simone - just so I don't find myself imitating them, even if it's subconsciously.

nina girl trying

Music always has to do with vibrations for me. I love to record everyone's heartbeats, in way. None of us beats at the same pace and a song is a magical moment where different entities, for a split second, meet up.

pace different song

It doesn't help that we are three generations of actresses, who are always obsessed with losing time. But on the other side, historically, women have much more time on their hands than before. It goes together-the more time we have, the more we're flipping out about how we've got to deal with it.

obsessed losing helping

Yeah, you always have to be there and remind people of you. It's complicated when you do music, or when you do anything in general. You need time. I don't know if it's because of the weather or what, but [Canadians] seem to have a relationship to time that I like very much.

weather people needs

Home has always been wherever I am. I'm not very attached to walls - or people, for that matter - so I've always loved travelling around. A book in my back pocket, a diary, and a pen is all I need to call any place home.

wall home book

It took me so long to get to the music, where that was what I wanted to do all my life. It took me so long to realise that it wasn't really movies that I wanted to do, but to be on stage singing.

stage singing long

Music, for the moment, has been this hidden thing for me. For the first time, I am master of something. I am not used by someone else, like in movies or pictures, where you always have the happiness or disappointment of knowing it's you seen through someone else's point of view. You go to see a film and half of the pretty scenes are not in it-the ones you liked. Living with this frustration all the time, suddenly music came as the best thing for me at home, where no one can tell you anything.

frustration disappointment home