Tristana (song) - Background and Writing

Background and Writing

After the success of "Libertine", the duo Farmer-Boutonnat sought to repeat their musical feat. In January 1987, Farmer performed "Au bout de la nuit" during a television show dedicated to Guy Béart, which indicated that the song was scheduled as her fifth single. However, Boutonnat had composed a new music and had asked Farmer to write lyrics that could be sung with this music (in fact, from this song, Farmer wrote all lyrics of her songs). It was Thierry Rogen who mixed the song. Although many media said that Farmer draw her inspiration from Luis Buñuel's film Tristana, with Catherine Deneuve, which tells the story of a mutilated woman, it was wrong, as Farmer actually referred to Leo Tolstoy's novel Anna Karenina. Indeed, Farmer stated she had not seen the film before the song's writing, saying: "It's true that Tristana is a Spanish name, and I when I thought Tristana, I thought Russian."

Finally, this song was released instead of "Au bout de la nuit" as this song was deemed as too slow. Because of this hit, the album Cendres de Lune had a great success and was more released in CD edition in 1987; "Tristana" was added to the track listing in its both studio and remix versions.