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Rating: Whenever Carla Bruni is talked about, the most famous Italian model of the nineties, it's hard to avoid the inglorious comparison with Naomi Campbell's musical debut Baby Woman of 1995. In that case, the active participation of her boyfriend Adam Clayton, bassist of U2, was seen by many as an aggravating factor; the black Venus paid with a resounding flop for her singing ambitions.
Carla Bruni's debut work, Quelqu'un m'a dit in 2003, thanks to a handful of delicate songs for voice and guitar alone, managed to conquer France, the adopted homeland of the model born in Turin into a wealthy family of musicians, with over two million copies sold. Similar to how Bellucci captivated the French, who are chauvinistic about everything except female beauty, they immediately exalted Carla Bruni's discreet talent, wholeheartedly electing her as a muse of the exquisite singing beyond the Alps.
The new album, entirely sung in English, is a more ambitious work than the previous one: instead of the naive lyrics present in Quelqu'un m'a dit, Bruni tackles poems by important authors such as William Yeats and Emily Dickinson. She doesn't lack courage, but in No Promises there's a feeling that the initial recklessness has become nothing but calculation. In an effort to not disappoint her numerous admirers, Carla Bruni loses sight of the strength of Quelqu'un m'a dit: an effective work of subtraction that offered us a handful of simple, but sincere songs.
No Promises may also be sincere, yet Carla has probably taken the notorious "step longer than the leg," quite the irony for a model.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
05 Promises Like Pie Crust (02:33)
Promise me no promises
So will I not promise you
Keep we both our liberties
Never false and never true
Let us hold the die uncast
Free to come as free to go
For I cannot know your past
And of mine what can you know?
You, so warm, may once have been
Warmer towards another one
I, so cold, may once have seen
Sunlight, once have felt the sun
Who shall show us if it was
Thus indeed in time of old?
Fades the image from the glass
And the fortune is not told
If you promised, you might grieve
For los liberty again
If I promised, I believe
I should fret to break the chain
Let us be the friends we were
Nothing more but nothing less
Many thrive on frugal fare
Who would perish of excess
10 Ballade at Thirty Five (03:03)
This, no song of ingénue
This, no ballad of innocence
This, the rhyme of a lady who
Followed ever the natural bents
This, a solo of sapience
This, a chantey of sophistry
This, the sum of experiments, --
I loved them until they loved me
Decked in garments of sable hue
Daubed with ashes of myriad Lents
Wearing shower bouquets of rue
Walk I ever in penitence
Oft I roam, as my heart repents
Through God's acre of memory
Marking stones, in my reverence
"I loved them until they loved me."
Pictures pass me in long review, --
Marching columns of dead events
I was tender, and, often, true
Ever a prey to coincidence
Always knew I the consequence
Always saw what the end would be
We're as Nature has made us -- hence
I loved them until they loved me
Princes, never I'd give offense
Won't you think of me tenderly?
Here's my strength and my weakness, gents -
I loved them until they loved me
11 At Last the Secret Is Out (03:09)
At last the secret is out
As it always must come in the end
The delicious story is ripe to tell
To tell to the intimate friend
Over the tea-cups and into the square
The tongues has its desire
Still waters run deep, my dear
There's never smoke without fire
Behind the corpse in the reservoir
Behind the ghost on the links
Behind the lady who dances
And the man who madly drinks
Under the look of fatigue
The attack of migraine and the sigh
There is always another story
There is more than meets the eye
For the clear voice suddenly singing
High up in the convent wall
The scent of the elder bushes
The sporting prints in the hall
The croquet matches in summer
The handshake, the cough, the kiss
There is always a wicked secret
A private reason for this
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Other reviews
By Lesto BANG
Promises, promises... but doesn’t deliver!
An absolutely useless album that will end up in the musical oblivion in less than 1 month.
By The_dull_flame
In English, she comes across almost cold, without any emotion whatsoever.
Carla Bruni’s voice has become an absolute disappointment: if before it was warm, enveloping, distinctive, now it appears quite poor and almost masculine.
