Tristana (song)

"Tristana"
Single by Mylène Farmer
from the album Cendres de Lune
Released	February 1987
Format	7" single, 7" maxi, digital download (since 2005)
Recorded	1987, France
Genre	Synthpop
Length	4:30
Label	Polydor
Writer(s)	Lyrics: Mylène Farmer Music: Laurent Boutonnat
Producer(s)	Laurent Boutonnat
Mylène Farmer singles chronology
"Libertine" (1986) "Tristana" (1987) "Sans contrefaçon" (1987)
Alternate covers 12" maxi Soundtrack of the music video Cendres de Lune track listing "Vieux Bouc" (3) "Tristana" (4) "Chloé" (5)

"Tristana" is a 1987 song recorded by the French artist Mylène Farmer. Fourth single from her first studio album Cendres de Lune, the song was released in February 1987. As for the previous single "Libertine", the music video was produced as a film, with many extras and a huge budget. First song entirely written by the singer herself, it enjoyed an intense promotion on television and met a great success in France, reaching the top ten.

After the success of "Libertine", the duo Farmer-Boutonnat sought to repeat their musical feat. In January 1987, Farmer performed "Au bout de la nuit" during a television show dedicated to Guy Béart, which indicated that the song was scheduled as her fifth single. However, Boutonnat had composed a new music and had asked Farmer to write lyrics that could be sung with this music (in fact, from this song, Farmer wrote all lyrics of her songs). It was Thierry Rogen who mixed the song. Although many media said that Farmer draw her inspiration from Luis Buñuel's film Tristana, with Catherine Deneuve, which tells the story of a mutilated woman, it was wrong, as Farmer actually referred to Leo Tolstoy's novel Anna Karenina. Indeed, Farmer stated she had not seen the film before the song's writing, saying: "It's true that Tristana is a Spanish name, and I when I thought Tristana, I thought Russian."

Finally, this song was released instead of "Au bout de la nuit" as this song was deemed as too slow. Because of this hit, the album Cendres de Lune had a great success and was more released in CD edition in 1987; "Tristana" was added to the track listing in its both studio and remix versions.

The song deals with Farmer's favorite themes which has been regularly used in her next songs: blood and death. According to L'Est Républicain, "the fragility released by the texts can be found in the establishment of the instruments. For the occasion, flute, keyboards, percussion were treated in the manner of drum machines". About music, Farmer said: "We tried to give a little Slavic color, an atmosphere from Ukraine, to the song. Of course, the pan flute, it's not really Russian, but it contributes to this climate. And it's also a little oriental".