"T'en va pas" (Eng. "Don't Go Away") is a 1986 song recorded by the French artist

Elsa Lunghini Elsa Lunghini, stage name Elsa (born 20 May 1973), is a French singer and actress. She was a teenage pop-star in the late-1980s. In 1986, she was the youngest singer to reach number one in the French charts, with the single " T'en va pas", and sh ...

. Released as a single on 12 October 1986, this song, her debut single, was the soundtrack of the 1986 movie '' La Femme de ma vie''. It was a smash hit in France.

Background

In the movie, Elsa portrayed

Jane Birkin Jane Mallory Birkin, OBE (born 14 December 1946) is an English-French singer and actress. She attained international fame and notability for her decade-long musical and romantic partnership with Serge Gainsbourg. She also had a prolific career ...

's daughter and played the piano in a short scene. Finally, a whole song had been composed by

Romano Musumarra Romano Musumarra (born 21 July 1956) is an Italian composer, arranger, musician and record producer. Life and career Born in Rome, Musumarra approached music as a child, learning to play pipe organ at his church. He studied piano, compositio ...

, who decided to release it as a single. Musumarra had already worked and helped produce hits for two famous French artists of the 80s—

Jeanne Mas Jeanne Mas is a French pop singer. She is well known in France, Switzerland, Canada and Belgium for a number of hit singles released in the 1980s. Her first success was "Toute première fois" in 1984. This song was simultaneously released in the ...

(" En Rouge et Noir") and

Princess Stephanie of Monaco Princess is a regal rank and the feminine equivalent of prince (from Latin '' princeps'', meaning principal citizen). Most often, the term has been used for the consort of a prince, or for the daughter of a king or prince. Princess as a s ...

(" Ouragan"). "T'en va pas" was a huge hit in

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

, and managed to export itself across

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

with an English recording : "Papa, Please Don't Go". It became well known in Japan because it was used for Jeans' TV commercial there. Also in Japan,

Tite Kubo , known professionally as , is a Japanese manga artist and character designer. He is best known for his manga series '' Bleach'' (2001–2016), which had over 130 million copies in circulation as of 2022. Biography Kubo was born on June 26, 197 ...

used the song as the image song for the character

Orihime Inoue is a fictional character and in the ''Bleach'' manga series and its anime adaptations created by Tite Kubo. She is one of Ichigo Kurosaki's friends, and later his wife. Like the many other characters in the series, she quickly develops spiritua ...

from '' Bleach''. It also was used as the image song for the character Yumisuka Satsuki from ''

Tsukihime is a Japanese adult visual novel created by the dōjin circle Type-Moon, who first released it at the Winter Comiket in December 2000. In 2003, it was adapted into both an anime television series, ''Lunar Legend Tsukihime'', animate ...

''. In 2008 the song was used in

television commercials A television advertisement (also called a television commercial, TV commercial, commercial, spot, television spot, TV spot, advert, television advert, TV advert, television ad, TV ad or simply an ad) is a span of television programming produce ...

for

Impulse Impulse or Impulsive may refer to: Science * Impulse (physics), in mechanics, the change of momentum of an object; the integral of a force with respect to time * Impulse noise (disambiguation) * Specific impulse, the change in momentum per uni ...

brand deodorant, in Argentina. The song was available in the French and English languages on the best of ''Elsa, l'essentiel 1986-1993''. The music video shows images from the movie alternating with Elsa performing the song. In the mid-2000s, the song was covered in a live version by

Priscilla Priscilla is an English female given name adopted from Latin ''Prisca'', derived from ''priscus''. One suggestion is that it is intended to bestow long life on the bearer. The name first appears in the New Testament of Christianity variously as ...

on the TV show ''Absolument 80'' broadcast on M6.

Chart performances

"T'en va pas" had a huge success in

. It debuted at number 26 on the chart edition of 6 December 1986 and reached the top ten the week after. In the fifth week, it topped the chart and there stayed for eight consecutive weeks. Certified Gold disc by the Syndicat National de l'Édition Phonographique for over 500,000 copies sold, the single remained for 18 weeks in the top ten and for 25 weeks on the chart. At the time, Elsa became the youngest artist to reach number one on the French Singles Chart, therefore appeared on the Guinness Book of Records, as she was 13 years old; however, her record was beaten in 1993 by

Jordy Jordy is a masculine given name, and sometimes a diminutive of the name Jordan. Notable people and characters with the name include: People * Jordy (singer) (Jordy Lemoine, born 1988), French singer and musician * Jordy Birch (), Canadian singe ...

. Worldwide, about 1,3 million singles were sold.

Track listings

* 7" single # "T'en va pas" (single version) – 3:50 # "T'en va pas" (instrumental) – 4:45 * 12" maxi # "T'en va pas" (remix) – 5:32 # "T'en va pas" (instrumental) – 5:32 * 7" single - English version # "Papa Please Don't Go" (single version) – 4:00 # "T'en va pas" (instrumental) – 3:50 * 12" maxi - English version # "Papa Please Don't Go" (remix) – 5:25 # "Papa Please Don't Go" (instrumental) – 5:25

Production

* Arrangement & producer:

* Engineered by Gianpaolo Bresciani at Titania Studios, Rome

Charts and sales

Peak positions

Year-end charts

Certifications

References

{{Authority control 1986 debut singles Elsa Lunghini songs SNEP Top Singles number-one singles Songs written for films Songs written by Romano Musumarra