The music of the song "La Maison près de la Fontaine" was composed and its lyrics written in 1971 by Nino Agostino Arturo Maria Ferrari, singer, an Italian French author and composer, who became famous under as Nino Ferrer.
This hit, released by Editions Paul Beuscher, was performed by Nino Ferrer himself. He was accompanied by the splendid trumpet soloist Pierre Dutourd, the organist Giorgio Giombolini, the guitarist Slim Pezin, the bass player Jean Mandengué, and the drummer Lucien Dobat. "La Maison près de la Fontaine", which evokes a strong feeling of nostalgia, childhood memories, and some sort of abhorrence of excessive societal industrialisation and war, sold about 500,000 copies.
Nino Ferrer, who was born on 15 August 1934, at Gênes, committed suicide on 13 August 1998 by firing a bullet through his heart, in Montcuq, the Lot, some three kilometres away from his house. His mother had died a month earlier...
La maison près de la fontaine
Couverte de vigne vierge et de toiles d'araignées
Sentait la confiture et le désordre et l'obscurité
L'automne,
L'enfance,
L'éternité...
Autour, il y avait le silence
Les guêpes et les nids des oiseaux.
On allait à la pêche aux écrevisses
Avec Monsieur le curé
On se baignait tout nus, tout noirs
Avec les petites filles et les canards...
La maison près des HLM
A fait place à l'usine et au supermarché
Les arbres ont disparu, mais ça sent l'hydrogène sulfuré
L'essence
La guerre
La société...
C'n'est pas si mal,
Et c'est normal,
C'est le progrès.
La maison près de la fontaine: Nino Ferrer 
