October 1978, Paris: French singer Patrick Hernandez releases on Aquarius Records the single “Born to Be Alive”. By February 1979 - #1 in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Canada. By summer - #16 Billboard Hot 100 in the US. Total global sales by end of 1980 - over 25 million copies. One of the most successful singles of the disco era. In cumulative sales “Born to Be Alive” surpasses Gloria Gaynor's “I Will Survive”, Chic's “Le Freak” and Village People's “Y.M.C.A.” - but it's remembered less in the US, because there it didn't reach the top ten.
The author
Hernandez was born in 1949 in Paris, to a Spanish immigrant anarchist father and Italian-Austrian mother. Until 1978 he was an unsuccessful chansonnier. He wrote “Born to Be Alive” in 1977 after visiting the discotheque Les Bains Douches - understanding that French variety was ceding ground to Euro-disco.
“I wrote it in one night. The lyric is about how the body wants to move when you hear the rhythm. I didn't know any English phrases beyond the most basic, but it was precisely that absence of English experience that gave an honest simplicity”, Hernandez told Paris Match in 2005.
Recording
Recording took place at Ramses Studios in Paris, April-May 1978. Producer - Hervé Tonle. The studio had a 24-channel Neve console and an ARP Odyssey bought specifically for the project. Recording budget - 85,000 francs.
Instruments:
- ARP Odyssey - bassline, that pulsating motif
- Fender Rhodes - electric piano in the verse
- Prophet-5 (one of the first in France) - pads
- Live drums - session drummer André Ceresa
- Strings - a 12-piece live orchestra, recorded on a separate day
Numbers
- France: #1, 6 weeks; 1.4 million copies
- Germany: #1, 8 weeks; 1.2 million copies
- Italy: #1, 11 weeks - a 70s record for a French release
- Spain: #1, 14 weeks
- Canada: #1 RPM, 5 weeks
- UK: #10
- US: #16 Billboard Hot 100; #1 Dance Club Play (9 weeks)
- Japan: #8 Oricon International
Total global sales - 25 million copies. The eighth best-selling single of the 1970s by IFPI data. Hernandez has earned more than $50 million in royalties through 2024 - enough to live comfortably throughout his career, despite no other major hits.
A Madonna connection
An interesting fact: in 1979 the young Madonna Louise Ciccone (21) was a member of Hernandez's dance troupe on his European tour. She worked as a backing dancer for $300 a week. Four years later Madonna became a global star - but “Born to Be Alive” remained in her personal history as her first international work.
What the track did for the genre
“Born to Be Alive” proved that French disco could compete with American disco on the world stage. Before Hernandez the French pop industry was secondary to the American and British; “Born to Be Alive” opened the market for Desireless, Jean-Michel Jarre, Elli Medeiros and a dozen others. More - transition from disco to eurodance.
By 2024 Spotify - over 180 million streams of the original. In 2004 Jean-Claude Van Damme performed the track in the comedy Narco; in 2019 - remixes by Bob Sinclar and Martin Solveig. Hernandez is alive, lives in Nice, still performs occasionally.