Narrative Lab

The Song Before the Beat

Produced by Narrative Lab · Idea by Baptiste

In 1978 Paris, Camille Moreau, a young records-office assistant hoping to become a music journalist, is assigned to prepare background notes for Patrick Hernandez’s new disco single. Expecting a simple success story, she instead follows the song backward—from clubs and foreign charts to an uncertain 1973 Pigalle origin, an acoustic folk-like beginning, and an unsuccessful Paris Palace Hotel recording. Under pressure to produce a clean publicity myth, Camille must decide how to tell a compelling history when the most important evidence—the exact first draft—has not survived.

4 chapters · ≈ 5,058 words · ≈ 22 min read