The Little Prince in song

Some even call him the Little Prince of French music, but his real name is Raphaël and he is a star firmly fixed in the firmament of today’s French pop music scene. One of the tracks he sings on his album entitled “Je sais que la terre est plate” is “Concordia”, a song that relates directly to the work of Saint-Exupéry:

“Dans un petit avion je me suis posé
C’était vers Concordia dans une autre vallée
Deux enfants m’ont guidés car j’ai brisé ma roue”

(which translates roughly as: I landed in a light plane, it was near Concordia, in another valley; two children were my guides, because my landing gear was smashed)

For a better understanding of the resonance of these words, read “Wind, Sand and Stars” again, or our December news story in which we mentioned a delightful encounter between Saint-Exupéry and two young girls in the neighbourhood of… Concordia, in Argentina. And Raphaël has something else in common with Saint-Exupéry: he, too, is a pilot.

In another style entirely, Gilbert Bécaud used to sing a song entitled Le Petit Prince est revenu (the Little Prince is back). And Gérard Lenorman, a successful singer of the 1970s, paid tribute to him directly in his song, Le Petit Prince (1972).