Born in a Montauban refugee camp on August 1, 1941, Étienne Roda-Gil has been a fixture on the French song and rock scene for almost thirty years. Son of a Spanish Republican fighter who took refuge in Montauban and a mother "who sang every tango she heard on the radio", Étienne Roda-Gil became a Parisian and passed his baccalaureate at the Lycée Henri IV. Jeans, flea markets, jackets. It was in London that Étienne spent the year he turned eighteen. His third novel, Ibertao, published in 1996 by Stock, follows La Porte marine (Seuil, 1981) and Mala Pata (Seuil, 1992). Roda-Gil combines rock culture with Guevarist romanticism, the Spanish war and the rebellious blues of the Rolling Stones. In 1967, he met Julien Clerc in a bistro near the Sorbonne, and on May 9, 1968, "La Cavalerie" was released. France was in turmoil, Julien Clerc had curly hair, and Roda-Gil gave him the dimension of a dream. " Ivanovitch", "Le Patineur", "La Fille de la véranda", "Ce n'est rien": for ten years, this special lyricist and pure melodist astonished France.