A new song from Carla Bruni-Sarkozy

Music lovers pin back your ears, the rumours have been confirmed.

France's first lady, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, has been back in the recording studio.

This time around though it has not been as a singer but as a songwriter.

Bruni-Sarkozy has written one of the tracks for the upcoming album of one of this country's first "girls of rock 'n roll" and now a long-established star of the French musical scene, Sylvie Vartan.

A former wife of (French) rock music icon Johnny Hallyday, Vartan's new album, "Toutes peines confondues" is due for release on September 14, and among the tracks composed especially for her is "Je chante le blues" penned by none other than Bruni-Sarkozy.

In what is probably one of this country's worst-kept recent music industry secrets, an extract from the recording was played on national radio on Tuesday morning with the "revelation" that it would be "Vartan's first single to be taken from the upcoming album.

What's more it's Bruni-Sarkozy first "new" song since becoming first lady and taking up residence at the president's Elysée palace. Although she released her own album - her third - "Comme si de rien n'etait" last July, the bulk of those songs were written before she had even met the French president.

Even though Vartan's decision to release the track as her first single might have been something of a scoop for radio listeners on Wednesday morning, the same cannot be said for the news that the two women had been working together.

Back in March, the weekly news magazine, L'Express, told its readers that the Bulgarian-born 64-year-old (Vartan) had asked the Italian-born 41-year-old (Bruni-Sarkozy) to write a song for her and that the deed had been done and the track recorded.

There's even an extract that has been up and playing on YouTube since March, although it has so far only received a little over 10,000 hits.



For Bruni-Sarkozy lovers and/or those of you who enjoyed the breathless, gasping sounds of the French first lady's voice and gentle guitar strumming on "Comme si de rien n'etait" the new single from Vartan will have more than a familiar ring to it.

Except that is for the voice, which as you can hear is most definitely NOT that of the model-turned singer-turned first lady.

All that can be hoped perhaps is that Vartan's album, with other tracks written by well-known and successful French singer-songerwriters such as Marc Lavoine and Didier Barbelivien won't have the same lacklustre record sales as Bruni-Sarkoy's last offering.

Even though it officially achieved domestic sales of over 185,000, that figure took into account albums still on stock in the stores, a common practice for the music industry to massage the real figures (you can read about that here).

Vartan's new single and album are to be released to coincide with a series of concerts she'll be giving in Paris in September.