man"]). This soul song, with its quasi-revolutionary lyrics imploring a series of Ferrer's black music idols to gift him their black skin for the benefit of music-making, achieved long-lasting iconic status in Italy. "La pelle nera" was followed by a string of other semi-serious Italian songs, which included two appearances at the Sanremo Music Festival (in 1968 and 1970). In 1970, he returned to France and resumed his musical career there. Ferrer rebelled against the "gaudy frivolity" of French show business, filled with what he perceived as its "cynical technocrats and greedy exploiters of talent" (he had considered leaving show business altogether in 1967, when he left France for Italy). In his lesser-known songs, which the public largely ignored, he mocked life's absurdities. He agreed with Serge Gainsbourg and Claude Nougaro that songs are a "minor art" and "just background noise". In 1975 he started breeding horses in Quercy, France. In 1989, Ferrer obtained French citizenship, which he explained as his "celebration of the bicentenary of the French Revolution." He went on to record the French national anthem, accompanied by a choir. A couple of months after his mother died, Ferrer, on 13 August 1998, two days before his 64th birthday, took his hunting gun and walked to a field of corn, recently cut, near the neighbouring village of Saint-Cyprien. There, he lay down in a grove nearby and shot himself in the chest. His wife Kinou, with whom he had two sons, had already alerted the gendarmerie after finding a farewell letter in the house. Next day, there were front-page headlines in most French and Italian newspapers, such as "Adieu Nino!", "Nino Ferrer Hung Up His Telephone", "Our Nino Has Left for the South." They called him the Don Quixote and the Corto Maltese of French show business. Discography Studio albums 1966: Enregistrement public 1967: Nino Ferrer 1969: Nino Ferrer 1972: Métronomie 1972: Nino Ferrer and Leggs 1974: Nino and Radiah 1975: Suite en œuf 1977: Véritables variétés verdâtres 1979: Blanat 1981: La carmencita 1982: Ex-libris 1983: Rock'n'roll cow-boy 1986: 13e album 1993: La désabusion 1993: La vie chez les automobiles Live albums 1970: Rats and Rolls 1995: Concert chez Harry 45RPM singles and 4-track EPs 1963 Pour oublier qu'on s'est aimé ; Souviens-toi / C'est irréparable ; 5 bougies bleues 1964 Ferme la porte ; Je reviendrai / Oh ! Ne t'en va pas ; Ce que tu