Bob Dylan, Hugues Aufray and Quasimodo: a tale of Rue Cujas
As all the people who love this quarter will tell you, as you wander its streets you are walking in the footsteps of all the legendary figures who have fallen in love with this neighbourhood in the recent or more distant past. For example, do you know where Bob Dylan stayed on his very first trip to Paris in 1964? Rue Cujas of course
More bizarrely, Dylan’s guide to Paris on this occasion was the famous French singer Hugues Aufray, who had discovered Dylan and become friends with him in New York in 1960. In 1961, Aufray became a star in France with his song Santiano and the following year, when Dylan’s first album was released, he sent it to Aufray hoping the latter’s fame would help him make a name for himself in France.
Le poème de Bob Dylan dédié à Françoise Hardy
Dylan didn’t immediately meet with success in France, but the Nobel prizewinning folk singer discovered Notre-Dame during his visit, a place he had dreamt about as a teenager when reading Victor Hugo and becoming infatuated with Paris’s romanticism. In 1964, two years before his first show at the Olympia, the booklet included with his album “Another Side of Bob Dylan” contained a poem dedicated to Françoise Hardy in which Dylan evoked the atmosphere of this neighbourhood.
Walking in the shadow of Notre-Dame, watching gaunt Sorbonne students rattle by on their bikes, the River Seine, the bouquinistes selling second-hand books and the lovers… it was all there. In 1965, Hugo’s famous hunchback even turned up amongst the other characters haunting Desolation Row – a song we’ve added to your playlist and whose 11 minutes and 21 second duration corresponds perfectly to the time it takes to walk from Rue Cujas to the hunchback’s lair on Île de la Cité! Bon voyage.
Image: a montage with photos of Hughes Aufray, Bob Dylan and Quasimodo.