Any Major ABC of France
On Friday the Summer Olympics will open in Paris, with a likely extravagant ceremony I shall make a point of missing, since these things invariably annoy me. Indeed, I don’t know how much of the Games I will watch. In the past 20 years, my interest has receded.
Time was when I’d switch on the TV at stupid o’clock to watch the 100m sprint final, or the swimming, or any old thing that war running on TV. This time around I might watch Simone Biles, an epochal talent, go for multiple gold — after her experience in Tokyo three years ago, I hope the gymnast will do well — and specific events.
On balance, I expect that I will have spent more time listening to the present ABC of France mix, which I put together, of course, to mark the Olympic Games. I couldn’t really do another Paris-themed mix. Maybe I could, but two are enough: Any Major Paris and Any Major Paris in Black & White.
A couple of songs here are about Paris. There’s Edith Piaf’s anthemic Sous le ciel de Paris (which you can buy in Paris as turn music boxes) from 1954, and from 1957 Patachou’s version of Francis Lemarque’s Paris se regarde. Born in 1918 as Henriette Ragon, Patachou was named after the nightclub she and her husband owned on Montmarte. On the Paris in Black & White we had Patachou sing Sous le ciel de Paris, and Piaf the gorgeous Notre-Dame de Paris.
This ABC — I couldn’t find any act whose name starts with an X or, curiously, a U — has been playing at Maison Demicœur on loop. Last night, Nino Ferrer’s great 1975 hit Le Sud soundtracked my dreams! I’m a great fan of his 1974 album Nino And Radiah, which exists in English and French versions. It will feature again quite soon.
B stands, obviously, for Brigitte Bardot. She recorded the first version of Je t’aime…Moi non plus with Serge Gainsbourg in 1968, but somehow BB’s husband, the German “playboy” Günter Sachs objected to his wife orgasming for all the world to hear. So Bardot asked Serge to shelf her version, and he re-recorded his piece of pervmoania with Jane Birkin. The original remained unreleased until 1986, by which time Sachs was long off the scene and Bardot could be heard getting a little excited.
Two tracks became big global hits in their English versions. C’est si bon didn’t even change its name. Performed here by Jean Sablon in 1950, it was written in 1947 by Henri Betti, with the original French lyrics by André Hornez. I think Sablon was also the first to perform the English version.
Charles Trenet’s La Mer became a huge hit for Bobby Darin as Beyond The Sea. It was written by Trenet a decade earlier, first released by Roland Gerbeau in 1945, and a hit in the writer’s 1946 version. It is, simply put, one of the greatest French songs ever written.
The mix spans 75 years: the oldest track is Lucienne Boyer’s Mon coeur est un violon, which itself was a re-recording of the song with which she had had a hit in the 1930s. The youngest song here is from 2022, by French-Swiss actress Kloé Lang. Oddly, the mix covers all decades from the 1940s to the 2020s, except the 1980s. My shortlist had a few ’80s songs, but none made the cut. Perhaps the 1980s were just a bad decade for French music…
Obviously the tracks run in their alphabetical order, which makes for random listening. But I have also made a more coherently sequenced playlist; I would recommend playing that one. I hope that the mix contains some happy surprises and new discoveries.
The playlist slightly exceeds the length of a standard CD-R, but I’ve included home-fabriquéd covers and the above in a PDF. Plus English translations of the songtitles. PW in comments. Bonne écoute et bons Jeux Olympiques!
Anggun – La neige au Sahara (1997)
Brigitte Bardot & Serge Gainsbourg – Je t’aime…Moi non plus (1968)
Charles Trenet – La Mer (1956)
Danyel Gérard – Butterfly (1971)
Edith Piaf – Sous le ciel de Paris (1954)
Françoise Hardy – Le crabe (1970)
Georges Moustaki – Le Métèque (1969)
Hugues Aufray – Céline (1966)
Indila – Dernière Danse (2014)
Jean Sablon – C’est si bon (1950)
Kloé Lang – Aimez moi (2022)
Lucienne Boyer – Mon coeur est un violon (1945)
Michel Delpech – Pour un flirt (1971)
Nino Ferrer – Le Sud (1974)
Olivia Ruiz – Elle Panique (2009)
Patachou – Paris se regarde (1957)
Quatuor feat. Edmée de Meyer – Jusqu’à la mort! (1959)
Renan Luce – Appelle Quand Tu Te Réveilles (2014)
Sylvie Vartan – La plus belle pour aller danser (1964)
Teri Moïse – Je serai là (1996)
Vanessa Paradis – Mi Amor (2013)
Wallen – Donna (2004)
Yves Duteil – Le fruit de mon verger (1977)
Zaz – Je veux (2010)
PREVIOUS ABCs:
ABC of 1940s
ABC of 1950s
ABC of 1960s
ABC of 1970s
ABC of 1990s
ABC of 2000s
ABC of Soul
ABC of Country
ABC of Christmas
ABC of South Africa
ABC of Canada
PW = amdwhah