Doesn't Matter

Album: Chris (2018)
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Songfacts®:

  • This bass-driven tune finds Héloïse Letissier (a.k.a. Christine and the Queens) wresting with the question of a higher power as a way of calming herself in the wake of mounting misery. Lettissier explained:

    "It's a crisis song that I wrote late one night. This song is a cathedral, with a rhythm as unalterable as white stone. The bass line, I remember playing it for hours, as if to rock myself."
  • The song was released as the second single from Lettisier's Chris album, following the swaggering "Girlfriend." Speaking to Beats 1's Zane Lowe, admitted "it might be a different narrative" to the album's lead single, but "it's actually a sign that there are many ways to be tough and strong on that record – there are many nuances in that storytelling, many ways to be bold."

    She continued: "To me, this bold in a way that I am totally and utterly exposed. There is nothing where I can hide. If you listen to the lyrics, it's almost like a confession. There is a sense of despair also in this record, but it's strangely empowering at the same time."
  • "Doesn't Matter" is the English version. Lettissier also recorded a French-English version titled "Doesn't Matter (Voleur de Soleil)."
  • The lo-fi video was directed by Colin Solal Cardo, known for his work with French collective La Blogotheque, which includes collaborations with Jack White, Alicia Keys and Phoenix. The clip sees Lesissier locked in a physical struggle with another dancer in a car park. Their tussle is how the singer imagines an interaction might happen between a human and God.
  • Letissier originally had a much bigger idea for the video, planning one where she duets with a male dancer in a tire wasteland with a dead lion next to her. "I was searching for an epic image of despair. OK, I don't take any drugs, I'm just obsessed with the idea that you could have one still of the video and you'd have the emotion of the whole song," she explained to The Independent. "But it was impossible to do. I didn't want to kill a lion, and the wastelands were toxic, so we ended up doing it in a parking lot. But the substance of the video is there."

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