I am disappointed with Carla Bruni

Yes, I am bitterly disappointed with Carla Bruni. Not musically, not with her music in the slightest. More with her choice in men. Last Saturday she became France’s first lady. She’s gone and married the French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Oh dear.
I know that ‘former model marries older, rich and powerful man’ isn’t really news, but I expected so much more of Carla, I didn’t expect her to conform to the stereotype. I love Carla Bruni’s music. It’s intimate and welcoming, with veins of sadness. I remember playing her first album ‘Quelqu’un M’a Dit’ on a balcony in the far south of Italy, as the day faded and we peered out across the sea, lazily trying to spot the distant coast of Albania, lighting citronella candles against the mosquitoes. My memory of ‘No Promises’ is of a Sunday morning; of white sheets, good coffee and a jumble of newspaper supplements.
I had hoped, and assumed somewhat, that Carla Bruni lived a chic yet shabbily bohemian existence in an airy flat with mis-matched velvet furniture and a boulanger downstairs who called her Mademoiselle B and saved her the best croissants. (I mostly blame the cover of ‘No Promises’ for this.)

So now I feel let down. I could understand her going out with Mick Jagger. I could make excuses for Eric Clapton. But to become Madame Sarkozy and marry into the very heart of the French establishment… she doesn’t need the money, it can’t be for his looks, so it must be the power (President Sarkozy does not strike me as a loveable man.) And so I think less of her and her beautiful music is somehow tainted. Au revoir Carla.