Françoise Hardy interviewed: “In my head I’m still very young”

To Paris, for a rare meeting with the pioneering chanteuse Follow Tom on Twitter: Tucked away on the back cover of 1964’s is a poem. “For Françoise Hardy,” writes Dylan. “ ” Hardy has known about Dylan’s untitled poem for the past 54 years, but it was only a few months ago that she really began to understand it.

“Earlier this year, two Americans got in touch with me,” she says. “They had inherited some drafts of the poem that Dylan had left in a café. They sent me these drafts, and I was very moved.



This was a young man, a very romantic artist, who had a fixation on somebody only from a picture. You know how very young people are..

. I realised it had been very important for him.” It is early spring when meets Hardy at the chic Hotel De Sers, not far from the Arc De Triomphe.

She prefers not to venture out of central Paris if she can help it, so our rendezvous is near Hardy’s home, and just two miles from the ninth arrondissement where the singer grew up. Just turned 74, Hardy is still slim and bright-eyed, quick to laugh and as stylish as ever – today she’s wearing dark skinny jeans, a black top and a fitted blazer, with a bright-red scarf and gold necklace her only accessories. Bob Dylan’s not the only artist to have been captivated by Hardy and her work, of course – The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Nick Drake, David Bowie, Richard Thompson and Graham Coxon have all paid tribute to her considerable musical gifts.

“My sister had a Françoi.