“Alligators 427” by H.F. Thiéfaine, an allegorical and poetic testimony to death and nuclear danger

Abstract

In this essay we analyse how the song “Alligators 427”, by French singer and poet Hubert-Félix Thiéfaine, creates and reconstructs an apocalyptic image underlying the dangers of nuclear energy. We take as our theoretical anchor Stuart Hall on the importance of music in society, according to whom music is “the sound of what cannot be” (Sovik, 2023, n/p.). Our reading is therefore centred on the musical domain and the historical and cultural scenario in which it takes part, namely that involving the conflict: a protest song against nuclear energy at the French power station of Fessenheim. One of the focuses of our text lies in analysing the lyrics and the narrative created by the artist and poet, which will allow us to understand how he represents an idea of war and death through metaphor and how, to quote Nina Felshin, “artists engage in an active process of representation” (Felshin, 2006, n/p.). This analysis will show how war induced uncertainty and instability and, above all, the prevalence of the threat of death, as Freud argued in his letter to Einstein, “the death instinct is transformed into a destructive instinct” (Einstein, 1991, n/p.).