Beyond My Control

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“Beyond My Control”
Single by Mylène Farmer from the album L'Autre...
Released	May 1992
Format	CD single CD maxi 7" single 12" maxi Cassette Digital download (since 2005)
Recorded	1991, France
Genre	Pop
Length	5:24
Label	Polydor
Writer(s)	Text : Mylène Farmer Music : Laurent Boutonnat
Producer	Laurent Boutonnat
Mylène Farmer singles chronology
"Je t'aime mélancolie" (1991) "Beyond My Control" (1992) "Que mon cœur lâche" (1992) Alternate cover 12" maxi L'Autre... track listing "Il n'y a pas d'ailleurs" (8) "Beyond My Control" (9) "Nous souviendrons-nous" (10) L'Autre track listing "Je t'aime mélancolie" (3) "Beyond My Control" (4) Dance Remixes track listing "Regrets" (5) "Beyond My Control" (6) "Désenchantée" (7) Mylenium Tour track listing "L'Âme-stram-gram" (3) "Beyond My Control" (4) "Rêver" (5) Music Videos I track listing "Je t'aime mélancolie" (11) "Beyond My Control" (12) "Maman a tort" (13) Les Mots track listing "Je t'aime mélancolie" (13) "Beyond My Control" (14) "Que mon cœur lâche" (15)

"Beyond My Control" is a 1991 song recorded by the French artist Mylène Farmer. Fourth single from her third studio album L'Autre..., the song was released in May, 1992.

[edit] Background and writing

The fickle and ambiguous song "Pas de doute", already scheduled as the third single from the album L'Autre...,^[1] would have been released as the fourth single, but was finally replaced by "Beyond My Control", which was remixed to be more commercial.

The song was inspired by two characters in the 1782 French epistolary novel "Les Liaisons dangereuses", written by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos : the Marquise de Merteuil and the Vicomte de Valmont.^[2] In the song, the voice heard on the chorus of the song which repeats "It's beyond my control" is in fact a sample of John Malkovich's voice from the film "Les Liaisons dangereuses" by Stephen Frears.^[3]

For the first time in Farmer's career, a CD single was marketed among the various media. At the time of the song's release, the radio NRJ prepared a 7" maxi with a collector picture disc in a limited edition (50 copies) and containing a new remix.^[4]

The song was performed on Mylenium Tour, but at this occasion, Malkovich's voice was replaced and the choreography initially scheduled was abandoned.^[4]

[edit] Lyrics and music

The song deals with the self-control, the love and the death. Farmer tells her own story from the Valmont's sentence ("it's beyond my control") : that of a woman who kills her unfaithful lover after a night of love.^{[2] [5]}

[edit] Music video

Mylène Farmer biting Frédéric Lagache, her lover in the video "Beyond My Control".

The video was directed by Laurent Boutonnat who also wrote the screenplay based on the book "Les Liaisons dangereuses", by Choderlos de Laclos.^[6] It was his last video for Farmer before that of "Les Mots", nine years after. The video was shot for two days at Studio Sets in Stains (where the video of "Plus grandir" was already shot in 1985) and cost about only 45,000 euros (the budget was limited because the film Giorgino was in preparation). This Requiem Publishing and Heathcliff SA production features Farmer, Frédéric Lagache, who was the puppeteer in the video of "Sans contrefaçon" and who there plays her flighty lover, and Christophe Danchaud, a dancer of Farmer's tours, who replaces this one for the bare scenes.^[7]

In the video, Farmer, tied on an ignited pyre, tries to struggle. Then she kisses for a long time her lover in torrid scenes, and then, wearing a long and wide dress, she walks on embers, with hands full of blood, while singing. These three scenes continue to intersecting until the end of the video. Then Farmer enters a home and surprises her lover making love with a fair-haired woman. The scenes are very erotic. Farmer bites her lover in the shoulder and some blood trickles along his back ; they kiss and some blood flows from their mouths. Two wolves voraciously tear apart the body of a dead man.^[8]

The video, with many explicit scenes of sex and violence, was censored from its release, making a great to-do in the mass media which published many controversial images.^[9] Michel Drucker categorically refused to air it in his show on France 2, M6 decided to bill it in full version only after midnight, Canal + agreed to broadcast it in the show Top 50, where the programmer confessed she didn't find the video so shocking ; as for the channel MCM, it asked advice of its TV viewers who had voted for or against.^[10]

[edit] Chart performances

In France, the single started at number 10 on May 9. It reached it highest position, number 8, twice : on May 16 and June 6. It left the Top 50 after only 11 weeks of attendance.^[11] The single peaked at number 10 on the Belgian (Wallonia) Ultratop Singles Chart. Thus, its running and sales were disappointing in comparison with the three other singles from L'Autre....

[edit] Formats and track listings

[edit] Versions

Official versions

Unofficial mentionable fan remixes^[13]

• Trance remix (5:17)

[edit] Credits and personnel

• Text : Mylène Farmer
• Music : Laurent Boutonnat
• Editions : Requiem Publishing
• Recording company :Polydor
• Photography : Marianne Rosensthiel
• Design : Henry Neu / Com'N.B

[edit] Charts, certifications and sales