France - One song per day.

[Romain]

Alain Bashung - La nuit je mens - 1998

Album : Fantaisie militaire (RYM: 3.83/5)

Wikipédia :

Youth :
Alain Bashung was the son of a Breton mother working in a rubber factory and an Algerian Kabyle father, whom he never knew. His mother remarried, and at the age of one, Bashung was sent to Wingersheim, near Strasbourg to live with his stepfather's parents. He spent his childhood in the countryside, in a rather conservative environment, alongside a grandmother who did not speak French. He discovered music during his childhood, notably Kurt Weill's Mahagonny, and began to practice with a Rosebud harmonica offered to him when he was five. He also practiced basketball and cycling and sang in the church choir of Wingersheim.

He came back to Paris in 1959, where he discovered the great chanson artists, and then rock artists such as Gene Vincent, Buddy Holly (whom he admired deeply), and Elvis Presley. While studying (before dropping out after he was awarded a BTS in accountancy from the École nationale de commerce in 1965), he formed a band called Les Dunces playing folk music and rockabilly.


Long beginnings :
He later formed a band with musicians met in Royan, and then began to tour in restaurants, hotels and American military bases. He begins his career with his first EP,"Pourquoi rêvez-vous des États-Unis ?" in 1966, which he wrote and composed. At the same time, he joined the RCA label to become a music arranger. He wrote songs for French artists such as Claude Channes, Évelyne Courtois (whose nom de scène was Pussy Cat) or Noël Deschamps. In June 1967, at the Palais des Sports of Paris, he was the opening act (alongside Noël Deschamps and Ronnie Bird) of artists such as the Pretty Things, the Troggs or Cream. In 1968, he released his first single, "Les Romantiques" (which is now extremely hard to find) which was ignored by the public. Around that time, he dropped the "c" from his name and spent some time at the house of fellow singer Christophe.

From 1972 to 1974, he composed some of the music and cowrote three albums and three singles (including "Marilou") for French rock singer Dick Rivers. In 1973, he plays Robespierre in the musical La Révolution française by Claude-Michel Schönberg.

In 11 years, he released no less than four EPs and ten singles, one under the moniker of David Bergen, and two others in 1976 and 1977 as Hendrick Darmen, composer for a band called Monkey Bizness. All of them failed to have any impact.


Boris Bergman and first successes :
He then met sound engineer Andy Scott and lyricist Boris Bergman. Together, they realized his first album Roman-photos, with a country and rockabilly sound, which was a commercial failure as punk rock was rising.

In 1979, he produced another album, Roulette russe, darker and leaning more openly toward rock. In 1980, he released the single "Gaby oh Gaby", which became his breakthrough success (selling more than a million copies). His critical and commercial success was confirmed with his next album, Pizza, which allowed him, thanks to his second hit success, "Vertige de l'amour", to tour in prestigious locations, such as the Olympia. However, he broke with Bergman at the time.


Artistic turn :
In 1982, Bashung released an album called Play blessures, written by Serge Gainsbourg. The album, in high contrast with its immediate predecessor, is dark, not very accessible and minimalistic, as an attempt to break away from his unexpected success. It was a commercial and, at first, critical failure, Bashung being called by some the "Johnny Hallyday of New Wave". Yet, it is now considered a classic album in France.

In 1983, he produced another dark album, Figure imposée, to little success as well. However, in 1984 he made peace with Boris Bergman, and the lyricist wrote for him "SOS Amor" which was a surprise hit. In 1985, he sang "Touche pas à mon pote", a single for the association SOS Racisme.

In the wake of the success of "SOS Amor", he released in 1986 the album Passé le Rio Grande, which allowed him to get his first Victoires de la musique award.

In 1989, he went back to his dark experimentations with the album Novice, from which the singles "Bombez !", "Pyromanes" and "Étrange été" were released. The album marked his first collaboration with lyricist Jean Fauque and his definitive breakup with Boris Bergman.


Mainstream and critical success :
In 1991, he released another album with Fauque as lyricist, Osez Joséphine, which also included some American classics covers. The album helped him achieve mainstream success, selling 350.000 copies and "Osez Joséphine" became his first real popular success since "Vertige de l'amour". On the same album is featured "Madame rêve", another classic in a different, more atmospheric style, which would be a trademark of his future releases.

In 1992, he covered a French pop classic, "Les Mots bleus" by Christophe, for an AIDS research support compilation. In 1994, he released Chatterton, which he called a "new age country" album. For this album, he worked with artists such as Sonny Landreth, Ally McErlaine, Link Wray, Marc Ribot or Stéphane Belmondo. The single "Ma petite entreprise" was a new popular success. Following the album, he toured for two years and in 1995 released the double live album Confessions publiques.

From 1994 onwards, Bashung began to spend more time for his acting career (which he started in 1981 with Nestor Burma, détective de choc), for instance with Ma sœur chinoise by Alain Mazars.

After recording a duet with Brigitte Fontaine, "City" for her Les Palaces album, he came back to music in 1998 with Fantaisie militaire. For this album, he notably collaborated with Jean Fauque, Rodolphe Burger, Les Valentins, Jean-Marc Lederman and Adrian Utley of Portishead. The arrangements and strings were done by Joseph Racaille. The first single from the album was "La nuit je mens" which was another hit for Bashung. For the album, he received 3 more Victoires de la musique awards in 1999 (and in 2005, he received another for the "best album of the last twenty years"). For Bashung, it was a huge commercial and critical success.

In 2000, he released the compilation Climax, on which some songs are rerecordings as duets with notable artists from the French scene (most famously, the song "Volontaire" from Play blessures with French band Noir Désir). That same year, he cowrote "L'Eau et le vin" for Vanessa Paradis' album Bliss.

In 2002, he released another album, L'Imprudence to critical acclaim, which is considered one of the darker albums of his discography. The album is not easily accessible and features strings and electronic arrangements, with sometimes nearly spoken lyrics, and was inspired according to Bashung by old black and white movies. That same year, he recorded the album Cantique des cantiques with his new wife, singer Chloé Mons, the song was written for their wedding in 2001 by Rodolphe Burger, from a new translation of Solomon's Song of Songs by Olivier Cadiot. In 2003, he sang the French chanson classic "Avec le temps" by Léo Ferré for a tribute album to the late artist, Avec Léo ! and wrote the preface to a book about that artist.

In 2004, the double live album La Tournée des grands espaces was released. In 2005, he sang "Le Sud" on a tribute album to Nino Ferrer, On dirait Nino. In 2006, he recorded a Charles Trenet song, "Que reste-t-il de nos amours ?" as a duet with Françoise Hardy for her album (Parenthèses...).

In June 2006, in the Cité de la musique in Paris, he got the opportunity to sing for several days. There he brought on stage artists such as Christophe, Dominique A, Rodolphe Burger or Arto Lindsay. In early 2007, after a small break, he was involved in the Les Aventuriers d'un autre monde tour alongside rock and pop artists Jean-Louis Aubert, Cali, Daniel Darc, Richard Kolinka and Raphaël. He sang for a couple of evenings in the Salle Pleyel in Paris, and played the role of Jack the Ripper for the song "Panique Mécanique" on Dionysos' album La Mécanique du Cœur.

That same year, he played with Belgian singer Arno in the movie J'ai toujours rêvé d'être un gangster, by Samuel Benchetrit. They appear as themselves, arguing over the authorship of a song.

In 2008, he sang "L.U.V." as a duet with Daniel Darc for the latter's album, Amours suprêmes. He was also involved in Étienne Daho's Daho Show, covering "I Can't Escape from You" as a duet with Daho. He also rerecorded Serge Gainsbourg's classic album, L'Homme à tête de chou, for a show.

On 24 March 2008, he released the album Bleu pétrole, collaborating notably with Gaëtan Roussel of French band Louise Attaque, Arman Méliès, M. Ward or Gérard Manset (covering the latter's song "Il voyage en solitaire" as the final song on the album). He then began to tour for the album. The 10th of June 2008, he sang several times at the Olympia although he was undergoing a chemotherapy for his lung cancer. Jean Fauque claimed that a new album was underway.


Final months and death :
On 1 January 2009, Bashung was made Chevalier (Knight) of the Légion d'honneur. On 28 February 2009, he received three prestigious Victoires de la Musique awards for his final album Bleu pétrole. The 2009 award ceremony was his last public appearance. He appeared frail, but still performed "Résidents de la République." He won the Best male artist of the year, Best album and Best tour awards.

Bashung died in Paris on 14 March 2009 from lung cancer at the age of 61 at the Hôpital Saint-Joseph in Paris. After a religious ceremony at the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, he was buried on 20 March 2009 in the Père Lachaise Cemetery.

On m'a vu dans le Vercors
Sauter à l'élastique
Voleur d'amphores
Au fond des criques
J'ai fait la cour à des murènes
J'ai fait l'amour j'ai fait le mort
T'étais pas née

À la station balnéaire
Tu t'es pas fait prier
J'étais gant de crin, geyser
Pour un peu je trempais
Histoire d'eau

La nuit je mens
Je prends des trains à travers la plaine
La nuit je mens
Je m'en lave les mains
J'ai dans les bottes des montagnes de questions
Où subsiste encore ton écho
Où subsiste encore ton écho

J'ai fait la saison
Dans cette boîte crânienne
Tes pensées
Je les faisais miennes
T'accaparer seulement t'accaparer
D'estrade en estrade
J'ai fait danser tant de malentendus
Des kilomètres de vie en rose

Un jour au cirque
Un autre à chercher à te plaire
Dresseur de loulous
Dynamiteur d'aqueducs

La nuit je mens
Je prends des trains à travers la plaine
La nuit je mens
Effrontément
J'ai dans les bottes des montagnes de questions
Où subsiste encore ton écho
Où subsiste encore ton écho

On m'a vu dans le Vercors
Sauter à l'élastique
Voleur d'amphores
Au fond des criques
J'ai fait la cour à des murènes
J'ai fait l'amour j'ai fait le mort
T'étais pas née

La nuit je mens
Je prends des trains à travers la plaine
La nuit je mens
Je m'en lave les mains
J'ai dans les bottes des montagnes de questions
Où subsiste encore ton écho
Où subsiste encore ton écho

La nuit je mens
Je prends des trains à travers la plaine
La nuit je mens
Je m'en lave les mains
J'ai dans les bottes des montagnes de questions
Où subsiste encore ton écho
Où subsiste encore ton écho ...

I’ve been seen on the Vercors range
Doing bungee jumps
Robbing amphorae
At the bottom of coves
I’ve courted moray eels
I’ve made love, I’ve played dead
You weren’t born yet

At the seaside resort
You didn’t have to be asked twice
I was massage glove, geyser
A tad more and I dripped
A water tale

At night I lie
I take trains to cross the plain
At night I lie
And wash my hands of it
In my boots are mountains of questions
Where an echo of you still remains
Where an echo of you still remains

I spent the season
Within this cranium
Your thoughts
I made my own
Hoarding you, only hoarding you
From platform to platform
I made so many misunderstandings dance
Miles and miles of vie en rose

One day at the circus
Another trying to humour you
Spitz trainer
Aqueduct dynamiter

At night I lie
I catch trains across the plain
At night I lie
Shamelessly
In my boots are mountains of questions
Where an echo of you still remains
Where an echo of you still remains

I’ve been seen on the Vercors range
Doing bungee jumps
Robbing amphorae
At the bottom of coves
I’ve courted moray eels
I’ve made love, I’ve played dead
You weren’t born yet.

At night I lie
I take trains to cross the plain
At night I lie
And wash my hands of it
In my boots are mountains of questions
Where an echo of you still remains
Where an echo of you still remains

At night I lie
I take trains to cross the plain
At night I lie
And wash my hands of it
In my boots are mountains of questions
Where an echo of you still remains
Where an echo of you still remains

[Pierre]

Oh my, how I love this song, back in the times it was my favourite French song ever. How I wish Alain Bashung was more well-known, he deserves so much more than a French-only cult.

And yes, Romain, I'm still around and following this thread! However, I've renounced to my idea to create a thread for my old 1001 best French songs ever list. Too much, way too much to do aside, and I can't commit myself to a regularly-updated work. I largely prefer posting massive lists just in one time, so I can simply answer questions after.

I put my list in Excel format here if there are people interested, but as I said before, I disown this list. It's way too incomplete to my eyes today, and there are songs I would not put in now.

Keep up with the good work, it's really a necessary work

[Romain]

Thanks Pierre !

Et pour ta liste, si un jour je n'ai plus d'idée, je te piquerai probablement une chanson ou deux

[Pierre]

Go ahead! You can use all of them if you want

[Romain]

Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville - Au clair de la lune - 1860

Today, something special : the earliest record of a human voice... and it's a French song

Be careful, it's very creepy.

In 2008, The New York Times reported the playback of a phonautogram recorded on 9 April 1860. The recording was converted from "squiggles on paper" to a playable digital audio file by scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California. The phonautogram was one of several deposited by Leon Scott in two archives in Paris and only recently brought to light.

The recording, of part of the French folk song Au clair de la lune, was initially played at a speed that produced a reasonable musical tempo, and on that basis it was taken as a 10-second recording of the voice of a woman or child. It was later decided[by whom?] that the playback speed had been too fast, and that it was actually a 20-second recording of a man, probably Scott himself, singing the song very slowly. It is now the earliest known recording of singing in existence, predating, by 28 years, several 1888 Edison wax cylinder phonograph recordings of a massed chorus performing Handel's oratorio Israel in Egypt.

A phonautogram by Scott containing the opening lines of Torquato Tasso's pastoral drama Aminta, in Italian, has also been found. Recorded around 1860, probably after the recording of Au clair de la lune, this phonautogram is now the earliest known recording of intelligible human speech. Recordings of Scott's voice made in 1857 have also survived, but they are only unintelligible snippets.

It is said that in 1863 a recording was made of Abraham Lincoln's voice at the White House, using Scott's phonautograph. A phonautographic tracing of Lincoln's voice was supposedly included among the artifacts kept by Edison. According to FirstSounds.org, Scott did not travel to the U.S. in the 1860s.

Scott's phonautograms were selected by the Library of Congress as a 2010 addition to the National Recording Registry, which selects recordings annually that are "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBL7V3zGMUA

http://www.firstsounds.org/sounds/scott.php

As a printer by trade, he was able to read accounts of the latest scientific discoveries and became an inventor. Scott de Martinville was interested in recording the sound of human speech in a way similar to that achieved by the then new technology of photography for light and image. He hoped for a form of stenography that could record the whole of a conversation without any omissions. His earliest interest was in an improved form of stenography and he was the author of several papers on shorthand and a history of the subject (1849).

From 1854 he became fascinated in a mechanical means of transcribing vocal sounds. While proofreading some engravings for a physics textbook he came across drawings of auditory anatomy. He sought to mimic the working in a mechanical device, substituting an elastic membrane for the tympanum, a series of levers for the ossicle, which moved a stylus he proposed would press on a paper, wood or glass surface covered in lampblack. On 26 January 1857, he delivered his design in a sealed envelope to the French Academy. On 25 March 1857, he received French patent #17,897/31,470 for the phonautograph.

The phonautograph used a horn to collect sound, attached to a diaphragm which vibrated a stiff bristle which inscribed an image on a lamp black coated, hand-cranked cylinder. Scott built several devices with the help of acoustic instrument maker Rudolph Koenig. Unlike Edison's later invention of 1877, the phonograph, the phonautograph only created visual images of the sound and did not have the ability to play back its recordings. Scott de Martinville's device was used only for scientific investigations of sound waves.

Scott de Martinville managed to sell several phonautographs to scientific laboratories for use in the investigation of sound. It proved useful in the study of vowel sounds and was used by Franciscus Donders, Heinrich Schneebeli and Rene Marage. It also initiated further research into tools able to image sound such as Koenig's manometric flame. He was not, however, able to profit from his invention and spent the remainder of his life as a librarian and bookseller at 9 Rue Vivienne in Paris.

Scott de Martinville also became interested in the relationship between linguistics, people's names and their character and published a paper on the subject (1857).

[Romain]

Next posts.

I will try to put only one hit wonders in this page. except Bashung of course.

[Romain]

Bibie - Tout doucement - 1985

Album : Bibie

Her childhood was marked by many countries where her father, a Ghanaian diplomat, was sent. Quickly, Bibie decided to devote herself to the singing, to the detriment of her studies.

After having tried several styles of Afro-American music, she moved to Paris, where she met the famous composer John Paul Dréau, who wrote the song "Tout doucement" for her. This song became a huge success in 1985, reaching number two in France. Certified Gold disc, the song was covered by Dalida in Italian-language and by Bibie herself in English-language. She also met success with "J'veux pas savoir", number 6 in France in 1986. She released the song "Tout simplement" in 1988, but was not able to repeat the same feat.

In the early 90s, Bibie continued her career, but enthusiasm of the public for her songs was no longer the same. As many other French female singers of the 1980s such as Sabine Paturel or Desireless, she fell again into anonymity.

After making a come back on French television, Bibie released an album in 2004 in the musical style of Tracy Chapman. While it was musically a critical success, the album was not fully embraced by her traditional audience. In the same year, she also took part in a French television show on the TF1 station called "Retour Gagnant" ("Winning Comeback"), where Julie Petri was the winner of the first season, and which was won this time by French singer Jean-Luc Lahaye.

In 2010, Bibie will take part in a music radio tour called "RFM party 80"

Tout doucement
Envie de changer l'atmosphère, l'attitude
Tout doucement
Besoin d'amour pour remplacer l'habitude
Tout simplement
Arrêter les minutes supplémentaires
Qui font de ma vie un enfer
Je l'aime encore mais plus vraiment.
Tout doucement
Sortir de ses draps et de son cœur
Tout doucement
Sans faire de bruit pour pas qu'il pleure.
Tout simplement
Changer de peau oublier tous les avants
Fermer les yeux se sentir de nouveau autrement

Tout simplement
Fermer pour cause de sentiments différents
Reviendrait peut-être dans un jour, un mois, un an
Dans son cœur dans sa tête
Si encore il m'attend ....
Tout simplement
Fermé pour cause de sentiments différents
Tout simplement fermé pour cause d'inventaire
Dans mon cœur dans ma tête
Changer tout vraiment.

Curieusement les aiguilles tournent
Mais ce ne sont pas celles du temps qui passe
Presque en silence quand on débute on s'aime
C'est pas vraiment la solitude mais c'est la certitude
D'un sentiment indépendant de son attitude

Oh ! Tout simplement
Fermé pour cause de sentiments différents
Reviendrait peut-être dans un jour, un mois, un an
Dans son cœur dans sa tête
Changer tout vraiment.
Si encore il m'attend...

Tout doucement
Sur la pointe du cœur tourner la page
Tout simplement
Choisir un nouveau livre d'images
Tout doucement
Prêt à apprendre à aimer passionnément
Tout simplement
Une autre histoire dans un monde différent

Tout simplement fermé pour cause de sentiments différents
Reviendrait peut-être dans un jour, un mois, un an
Dans son cœur dans sa tête
Si encore il m'attend....

English version (but the word have nothing in common)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwFVpCZEvYM

[Romain]

Chagrin d'Amour - Chacun fait c'qui lui plaît - 1982

Chagrin d’amour is a French pop duo, often cited as the ones who recorded the first French hip hop album. In 1982, they released “Chacun fait ce qui lui plait,” a recording of songs all performed in French with obvious influences by the rap music style. The album gained instant success in the country and sold over 3 million copies. Chagrin d’amour’s songs with simple rhymes and rap techniques caused many amateur music artists to become interested in the hip-hop style.

Grégory : Cinq heures du mat’ j’ai des frissons
Je claque des dents et je monte le son
Seul sur le lit dans mes draps bleus froissés
C’est l’insomnie, sommeil cassé
Je perds la tête, mes cigarettes
Sont toutes fumées dans l’cendrier
C‘est plein d’Kleenex et d’bouteilles vides
Je suis tout seul, tout seul, tout seul

Pendant qu’Boulogne se désespère
J’ai d’quoi m’remplir un dernier verre
Clac ! fait le verre en tombant sur le lino
Je me coupe la main en ramassant les morceaux
Je stérilise, les murs qui dansent
L’alcool ça grise et ça commence
« Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah »
Font les moutons sur le parquet

X : Et à ce moment-là, qu’est-ce que vous avez fait ?
Grégory : J’crois que j’ai remis la radio

Chœurs : Chacun fait, fait, fait
C’qui lui plaît, plaît, plaît
Grégory : L’précipice est au bout
Chœurs : Précipice on s’en fout !

Chacun fait, fait, fait
C’qui lui plaît, plaît, plaît
Toutes les étoiles qui brillent
Grégory : Qu’est-ce qu’elles ont à me dire les étoiles ?

Grégory : six heures du mat faut qu’j’trouve à boire
Liqueurs fortes ou café noir
J’brûle un feu rouge, police, patrouille
Je serre les fesses y a rien qui presse
« Quatre, cinq francs ma rose »
Crie le p’tit Chose dans l’matin rose
J’gare mon Ondine sous ses comptines
X : « hey kesta-là, kesta ta? »

Grégory : Tout près d’une Poste y a un p’tit bar
Je pousse la porte et je viens m’asseoir
Trois, quatre patibulaires
Tapent le carton dans les waters
Toute seule au bar dans un coin noir
Une blonde platine sirote sa fine
Elle dit : « Champagne », je l’accompagne
Elle dit : « Cinquante », j’lui dis : « ça m’tente »

X : et vous êtes rentrés comment ?
Grégory : Dans ma voiture... Ah ! Y avait toujours le même air à la radio.

Chœurs : Chacun fait, fait, fait
C’qui lui plaît plaît, plaît
Grégory : Que d’pression dans les bars
Chœurs : Personne te pousse à boire

Chacun fait, fait, fait
C’qui lui plaît, plaît, plaît
Grégory : Les gens ont d’ces manies…
Valli : La décalcomanie

Grégory : Sept heures du mat’, l’hôtel
Je paie, j’abrège,
Je fouille mes poches
-Je sais : c’est moche-
Son sourire rouge son corps qui bouge
Elle fait glisser son Cœur Croisé
Sur sa peau bronzée
T’as les bas Nylon qui filent sur l’édredon
Ses ongles m’accrochent : « Tu viens, chéri ? »
Le lit qui craque et les volets claquent
Seul dans le lit dans ses draps bleus froissés
Sur sa peau lisse mes doigts glacés
Elle prend la pose pense à autre chose
Ses yeux miroirs renvoient mon regard
Des anges pressés dans ce bleu glacé
Me disent : « C’est l’heure »
J’leur dis : « Quelle heure ? »

X : Et vous vous souvenez vraiment pas de c’qui s’est passé ?
Grégory : Non, vraiment pas.

Chœurs : Chacun fait, fait, fait
C’qui lui plaît, plaît, plaît
Grégory : Sous mes pieds y a la terre
Chœurs : Sous tes pieds y a l’enfer

Chacun fait, fait, fait
C’qui lui plaît, plaît, plaît
Grégory : Mon Dieu, j’peux même pas jouir
Valli : Tant pis pour toi il faut dormir

Valli : Alors je me sauve dans le matin gris
C’est plein d’cageots et pas d’taxi
Les chats qui s’tapent leur p’tit Ron-Ron
Les Eminences les Petits Bateaux
Porte de la Chapelle
Je me sens pas belle
Mes bigoudis sont plus en plis
Dans mon studio j’aspirateur
Ma vidéo m’fait un peu peur

Chœurs : Madame Pipi a des ennuis
Monsieur Papa s’fait du tracas
Dans les logis des mal lotis
Bébé vomit sa bouillie

Valli : Huit heures du mat’ j’ai des frissons
Je claque des dents et je monte le son
Seule sur le lit dans mes draps bleus froissés
C’est l’insomnie, sommeil cassé
Je perds la tête, mes cigarettes
Sont toutes fumées dans l’cendrier
C‘est plein d’Kleenex et d’bouteilles vides
Je suis toute seule, toute seule, toute seule

Pendant qu’Boulogne se désespère
J’ai d’quoi remplir un dernier verre
Clac ! fait le verre en tombant sur le lino
Je me coupe la main en ramassant les morceaux

Grégory: Five o'clock in the morning, I've got the shakes,
Grégory: Five o'clock in the morning, I've got the shakes,
My teeth chatter and I turn the sound up
Alone in bed in my crumpled blue sheets
It's insomnia, broken sleep,
I'm losing my mind, my cigarettes
Are all dogends in the ashtray
It's full of kleenex and empty bottles
I'm completely alone, completely alone, comletely alone

While Boulogne abandons hope
I have something to fill me one last glass
Crack! goes the glass falling onto the lino
I cut my hand gathering the fragments
I strerilise, the walls that dance
Tha alcohol, that causes dizzy spells and that starts
"Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah"
Go the sheep on the wooden floor

X: At at that point , what did you do?
Grégory: I think I put the radio back on

Choirs: Each does, does, does
What he pleases, pleases, pleases
Grégory: That ends with the abyss
Choirs: Abyss! No-one gives a damn about that!

Each does, does, does
As he pleases, pleases, pleases
All the stars that shine
Grégory: what do they have to say to me, the stars?

Grégory: six o'clock in the morning I've got to find a drink
Strong spirits or black coffee
I run a red light, police, patrol
I squeeze my cheeks there;'s nothing urgent
"Four, Five francs my rose"
Calls the little Thing in the pink morning
I park my Ondine under her nursery rhymes
X: "hey, wotcha got there, wotcha got you?"1

Grégory: Right beside a Post Ofice there's a little bar
I push the door and come in to sit down
Three, four dodgy types2
Are playing cards in the toilets
All alone in a dark corner at the bar
A platinum blond is sipping her brandy
She says "Champagne", I join her
she says "Fifty", I say "that tempts me" to her

X: and you3 got home how?
Grégory: In my car .... Ah! There was still the same tune on the radio

Choirs: Each does, does, does
As he pleases, pleases, pleases
Grégory: so much pressure in bars
Choirs: No-one pressures you to drink

Each does, does, does
what he like, likes, likes
Grégory: People have these crazes
Valli: transferring decals

Grégory: Seven o'clock in the morning, the hotel
I pay, I'm leeping it short,
I search my pockets
- I know, it's ugly -
Her red smile, her body that moves
She makes her coeur croisé4 bra slide
over her tanned skin
You have nylon stockings tangled on the duvet
Her nails attract me: "Are you coming, dear?"
The bed that creaks and the shutters bang
Alone in the bed in its crupled blue sheets
My icy fingers on her smooth skin
She strikes the pose thinks of something else
Here mirror eyes return my gaze
Hurried angels in this icy blue
Tell me "It's time"
I ask them "What time?"

X: And you really don't remember what happened?
Grégory: No, I really don't.

Choirs: Each does, does, does
As he pleases, pleases, pleases
Grégory: Under my feet there is ground
Choirs: Under your feet there is hell

Each does, does, does
As he pleases, pleases, pleases
Grégory: My God, I don't even get to come
Valli: Too bad for you, you must sleep

Valli: Then I must hurry off into the grey morning
Full of little cages and no taxis
Cats having it off with their little Purr-Purrs
Bigshots, Little Boats
Port de la Chapelle5
I don't feel beautiful
My curlers no longer make waves6
In my studio-appartment I vacuum clean7
My video scares me a bit

Mrs PiPi has some problems
Mr Papa has some worries
In the homes of the unlucky
Baby spews up his cereal

Valli: Eight o'clock in the morning, I've got the shakes,
My teeth chatter and I turn the sound up
Alone in bed in my crumpled blue sheets
It's insomnia, broken sleep,
I'm losing my mind, my cigarettes
Are all dogends in the ashtray
It's full of kleenex and empty bottles
I'm completely alone, completely alone, comletely alone

While Boulogne abandons hope
I have something to fill me one last glass
Crack! goes the glass falling onto the lino
I cut my hand gathering the fragments


1.slang for "what do you have there, what do you have, you?".
2.I'm sure there's a better expression for that, but can't remember it
3.plural - so Grégory and tblonde
4.the French phrase is normally used in English, as it's a branb name / trademark
5.The Chapel Gate, the northern entrance to Paris
6.I've assumed "ne" omitted before "sont"; it's quite common to omit "ne" but I'm not at all sure about it here, maybe bigoudi can mean the set of the hair instead of its usual meaning (curlers or rollers)
7.the noun "vacuum cleaner" is used as a verb here.


Thanks to michealt on LyricsTranslate.

[Romain]

Next post

[Romain]

Ben L'Oncle Soul - Soulman - 2010


Artist Biography by Jason Birchmeier (Allmusic)

Ben l'Oncle Soul is a French soul singer with a retro style who made his eponymous Top Five hit album debut in 2010. Born Benjamin Duterde in 1984 in Tours, Indre-et-Loire, France, he took his name and look from Uncle Ben, the fictitious elderly African-American man dressed in a bow tie who serves as the brand image of Uncle Ben's Rice.
The moniker Ben l'Oncle Soul was chosen rather than Uncle Ben to avoid any charges of trademark infringement. Years before Duterde adopted the Ben l'Oncle Soul moniker, he got his professional start as a vocalist in the Fitiavana Gospel Choir, which he joined in 2004.
The Tours-based gospel choir made its album debut with I Have a Dream (2009), a collection of English-language soul classics such as "Killing Me Softly," "Lean on Me," and "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman." In turn, Duterde was offered a solo recording deal with the French division of Motown Records. Billing himself as Ben l'Oncle Soul, he made his solo recording debut with the Soul Wash EP (2009). Comprised of cover material, the majority of it sung in English, the six-track EP is performed in a retro style informed by the Motown and Stax sounds of the 1960s. A cover of the Gnarls Barkley smash hit "Crazy" was released as a single.
A half-year later, Duterde made his full-length debut with the eponymous album Ben l'Oncle Soul (2010). Produced by Guillaume Poncelet and Gabin Lesieur, the album is comprised entirely of original material, plus the cover version of the White Stripes hit "Seven Nation Army" from the Soul Wash EP. With "Seven Nation Army" released as its lead single, Ben l'Oncle Soul was a Top Five hit on the French albums chart.

J'ai pas le regard de Spike Lee
J'ai pas le génie de De Vinci
J'ai pas les pieds sur terre
La patience de ma banquière
J'ai pas ces choses-là

J'ai pas la sagesse de Gandhi
L'assurance de Mohamed Ali
J'ai pas l'âme d'un gangster
La bonté de l'Abbé Pierre
Ni l'aura de Guevara

(refrain)
Je ne suis qu'un soulman
Écoute ça, baby
Je suis pas un superman
Loin de là
Juste moi, mes délires
Je n'ai rien d'autre à offrir
Mais je sais qu'en vrai c'est déjà ça

J'ai pas le physique des magazines
J'ai pas l'humour de Charlie Chaplin
J'ai pas la science infuse
Le savoir-faire de Bocuse
Non, je n'ai pas ces choses-là

J'ai pas la chance de Neil Armstrong
J'ai pas la carrure de King Kong
Plusieurs cordes à mon arc
La ferveur de Rosa Parks
Ni le courage de Mandela

(refrain x2)

Moi j'aurais aimé être comme eux
Être hors du commun
J'ai bien essayé
J'ai fait de mon mieux
Mais quoi que je fasse
A la fin :

(refrain x2)

Non, non, non, non
Juste moi, mes délires
Mais je sais qu'en vrai c'est déjà ça

I don't have the look of Spike Lee
I don't have the genius of Da Vinci
I don't have my feet on the ground
The patience of my banker (woman)
I don't have those things.

I don't have Ghandi's wisdom
Nor the sureness of Mohamed Ali
I don't have a gangster's soul
The goodness of Abbé Pierre
Nor the "drum roll of" Guevara

(chorus)
I'm just a soulman
Listen this, baby.
I'm not a superman
Not at all.
Just me, my delerious (acts)
I've got nothing else to offer
But I know that it's already that.

I don't have the body like in magazines
I don't have Charlie Chaplin's humor
I don't have the innate knowlegde
The know-how of bocuse
No, I don't have those things.

I don't have Neil Armstrong's luck
I'm not built like king Kong
Having more strings on my fiddle
The zeal of Rosa Parks
Nor Mandela's courage.

(chorus x2)

I would have liked to be like them ;
Be extraordinary.
I've tried well
I did my best
But no matter what I do
In the end:

(chorus x2)

No, no, no, no
only me,
my delirious (acts).
But I know that it's already that !

[Romain]

Next post

[Romain]

Patrick Coutin - J'aime regarder les filles - 1981

Wikipédia:
Patrick Coutin (born March 21, 1952 in Sfax, Tunisia) is a French writer, journalist, rock singer, and record producer.

He is most known for his 1981 hit "J'aime regarder les filles" ("I Like Looking at Girls"), which became emblematic of the 1980s in France.

Biography
After studying philosophy and plastic arts, Patric Coutin worked as a journalist at a number of music magazines, notably Rock & Folk.

Patrick enjoyed success as a singer in 1981 with his single hit, "J'aime J'aime les Filles". He will continue to publish albums, but will also make clips and exhibit paintings, of pop art influence.

Patrick will notably work as a videographer and even as a producer for Dick Rivers, Christophe Jenac (the grandson of Guy Lux), Jean-Pierre Morgand (of the group "Les Avions"), Michel Delpech or "Les Wampas".

In 1993, Patrick Coutin released a live album recorded in Lille, including new songs. Then will come "Love each other" in 1995, "Industrial Blues" in 2001, "Le bleu" in 2010 or "Babylone Panic" in 2012.

He acquired his world fame with his hit "J'aime regarder les filles". Since the beginning of his adventure in the world of music, women have been a real inspiration to him and thus puts them at the center of his creativity.

Indeed most of his writings refer to the Woman.

During the third millennium, he became an important figure in the French city named Bobigny. Inventive, he will be at the origin of the show "Ginzburg" in honor of Serge Gainsbourg.

J'aime regarder les filles qui marchent sur la plage
Sur leur peau le soleil caresse bien trop sage
Le vent qui les décoiffe au goût de sel sur mes lèvres

J'aime regarder les filles qui marchent sur la plage
Les hanches qui balancent et les sourires fugaces
Je regarde les vagues qui jouent avec leur corps

J'aime regarder les filles qui marchent sur la plage
Leurs poitrines gonflées par le désir de vivre
Leurs yeux qui se détournent quand tu les regardes

J'aime regarder les filles qui marchent sur la plage
Le soleil sur leur peau qui joue à cache-cache
Et des ambres solaires le parfum volage

J'aime regarder les filles qui marchent sur la plage
Quand elles se déshabillent et font semblant d'être sages
Leurs yeux qui se demandent mais quel est ce garçon

J'aime regarder les filles qui marchent sur la plage
Leur ventre qui se colle sur le sable chaud
Le vent qui les décoiffe et les sourires fugaces
J'aime regarder les filles qui marchent sur la plage

I like to look at girls that walk on the beach
On their skin caressed by the all too wise sun
The wind that messes up their hair to the taste of salt on my lips

I like to look at girls that walk on the beach
Their hips that sway and their fleeting smiles
I look at the waves that play with their body

I like to look at girls that walk on the beach
Their breasts swollen by the desire of life
Their eyes that turn away when you look at them

I like to look at girls that walk on the beach
The sun on their skin that plays hide and seek
And the solar amber colored fickle scent

I like to look girls that walk on the beach
When they undress and pretend to be wise
Their eyes that wonder but who is this boy

I like to look at girls that walk on the beach
Their stomachs that stick to the hot sand
The wind that messes up their hair and their fleeting smiles
I like to look at girls that walk on the beach
Thanks to sydrhill in Lyrics Translate.

[Romain]

Next One hit wonder.

[Romain]

Hervé Cristiani - Il est libre Max - 1981

Il met de la magie, mine de rien, dans tout ce qu'il fait
Il a le sourire facile, même pour les imbéciles
Il s'amuse bien, il n'tombe jamais dans les pièges
Il n'se laisse pas étourdir par les néons des manèges
Il vit sa vie sans s'occuper des grimaces
Que font autour de lui les poissons dans la nasse

Il est libre Max ! Il est libre Max !
Y'en a même qui disent qu'ils l'ont vu voler

Il travaille un p'tit peu quand son corps est d'accord
Pour lui faut pas s'en faire, il sait doser son effort
Dans l'panier de crabes, il joue pas les homards
Il n'cherche pas à tout prix à faire des bulles dans la mare

Il r'garde autour de lui avec les yeux de l'amour
Avant qu't'aies rien pu dire, il t'aime déjà au départ
Il n'fait pas de bruit, il n'joue pas du tambour
Mais la statue de marbre lui sourit dans la cour

Et bien sûr toutes les filles lui font les yeux de velours
Lui, pour leur faire plaisir, il leur raconte des histoires
Il les emmène par delà les labours
Chevaucher des licornes à la tombée du soir

Comme il n'a pas d'argent pour faire le grand voyageur
Il va parler souvent aux habitants de son cœur
Qu'est ce qu'ils s'racontent, c'est ça qu'il faudrait savoir
Pour avoir comme lui autant d'amour dans le regard

Il est libre Max ! Il est libre Max !
Y'en a même qui disent qu'ils l'ont vu voler

[Romain]

Next one hit wonder.

[Romain]

Jean-François Michael - Adieu, jolie Candy - 1968

Wikipédia
Yves Roze better known as Jean-François Michael is a French singer born on 16 April 1946. Between 1963 and 1968, he sang under his birth name Yves Roze. In 1968, Michel Berger (under his real name Michel Hamburger) wrote "Adieu Jolie Candy" that was a huge hit for Yves Roze, but releasing the song under the name Jean-François Michael with the single selling more than 5 million copies.

Under the new name Jean-François Michael, sometimes the "e" in Michael was written with the umlaut on the "e" as in Jean-François Michaël. He released three albums between 1968 and 1972, and a number of singles, but struck by a grave illness, he abandoned his musical career. He came back in 1975, but as a music director and producer.

Adieu jolie Candy, C'est à Orly
Que finissent, Les vacances à Paris
Adieu jolie Candy, Une voix t'appelle
C'est l'heure, Déjà de t'en aller

Dans cet avion
Qui t'emmène vers l'Angleterre

Adieu jolie Candy, Tu m'écriras
Tu le dis, Mais on dit toujours ça
Adieu jolie Candy, Je regretterai
Ton sourire, Et tes fautes de français

Mais cet avion
Te ramène en Angleterre

Adieu jolie Candy, Adieu jolie Candy
Je deviendrai, Un souvenir Une photo de vacances,
Adieu jolie Candy, Celui qui t'aime,
Là-bas, il a bien de la chance

Adieu Candy
Adieu,
Adieu

Goodbye, pretty Candy, at ORLY airport,
Your Paris vacation ends,
Goodbye, pretty Candy, a voice calls you,
It's already time for you to go.

In this airplane
That takes you to England

Goodbye, pretty Candy, you say
You'll write to me, but people always say that,
Goodbye, pretty Candy, I'll miss
Your smile, and your mistakes in French.

But this airplane
Is taking you to England

Goodbye, pretty Candy, goodbye, pretty Candy
I'll become a memory, a vacation photo,
Goodbye, pretty Candy, the one who loves you
Over there, he's very lucky.

Goodbye, Candy,
Goodbye,
Goodbye.

[Romain]

Next One Hit Wonder.

[Romain]

Hervé Vilard - Capri, c'est fini - 1965

Wikipédia :
Hervé Vilard (born René Villard, 24 July 1946 in Paris, France) is a French pop–singer, who first became famous in the 1960s.
His long national and international musical career as composer, singer and stage performer spans four decades. In 1992, in recognition of his contributions to French culture, he was awarded the Ordre national du Mérite in a ceremony at the Parisian Théâtre des Variétés hosted by Jean-Paul Belmondo.


"Capri c'est fini" is the debut single of French singer Hervé Vilard. The French song written and sang by him was released n Mercury Records and became a huge French and international hit in 1965 launching Vilard's career and making him instantly famous. The song sold 3.3 million copies. Vilard released 7 language versions of the song. The inspiration came when Vilard saw a promotional travel poster of the Italian town Capri in a Paris Métro station. "C'est fini" comes from a popular song of Charles Aznavour of the same title. The song talks about a break-up of an earlier relationship that had started in Capri.

Covers :
The song has been subject of many covers. In 1980, René Simard recorded the song. In 1994, Ludwig von 88 made a version on the album 17 plombs pour péter les tubes. In 2004, the vocal group Indigo interpreted the song in the album Classixties. A punk version was recorded by Kontingent Furax on the 2004 album Punk Academy. In 2008, Francis et ses peintres in participation with Philippe Katerine made a cover on the album La Paloma. Caravelli also did an "easy listening" version that appears on Reader's Digest Music: A New Day Has Come (2007).

Language versions include most notably Udo Jürgens in Italian and German keeping the French-language title, the Dutch-language version "Met wie ik hem zie" by Conny Van den Bos in 1966, a much later Dutch version "Parijs was zo mooi" by Doran in 1998 and yet a third Dutch version keeping the title "capri c'est fini" by Freddy Birset in 2002.

The English-language version is entitled "Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye", sung by the British Vince Hill on his album So Nice that appeared in 1967. An American version was sung by Lainie Kazan.

nous n´irons plus jamais,
où tu m´as dit "je t´aime"
nous n´irons plus jamais
comme les autres années

nous n´irons plus jamais
ce soir c´est plus la peine
nous n´irons plus jamais
comme les autres années

capri c´est fini
et dire que c´était la ville
de mon premier amour
capri c´est fini
je ne crois pas que
j´y retourmerai un jour

parfois je voudrais bien
te dire recommençons
mais je perds le courage
sachant que tu diras non

capri c`est fini
et dire que c`ètait la ville
de mon premier amour
capri c´est fini
je ne crois pas que j´y retourmerai un jour

nous n´irons plus jamais
mais je me souviendrais
du premier rendez-vous
que tu m´avais donne
nous n´irons plus jamais
comme les autres annees
nous n´irons plus jamais
plus jamais plus jamais

capri c´est fini
et dire que c´etait la ville
de mon premier amour
capri, c´est fini
je ne crois pas que
j´y retournerai un jour

We will never go again;
When you said to me "I love you"
We will never go again;
like the other years.

Will will never go again;
This evening is more the sorry,
We will never go again
Like the other years

Capri, it's fineshed,
And to say that it was the town,
Of my first love,
Capri, it's finiehd,
I do not believe that
I will return there one day

Sometimes I would well like
To say to you, let's re-start,
But I loose courage,
Knowing that you will say, no.

Capri, it's finished,
And to say that it was the town
Of my first love,
Capri, it's finished,
I do you blieve that
I will return there one day.

We will never go again,
but I would remember,
The first meeting
That you had given to me
We will never go again;
Like the other years,
We will never go again,
More never, more never.

Capri, it's finished,
and to say that it was the tow,
of my first love,
Capri, it's finished,
I do not believe that
I will return there one day.

[Romain]

Next one hit wonders

[Romain]

Patrick Hernandez - Born to be alive - 1979

Wikipédia :

Patrick Hernández (born 6 April 1949, Le Blanc-Mesnil, Seine-Saint-Denis) is a French singer who had a worldwide hit with "Born to Be Alive" in 1979.

Born to a Spanish family, Hernández grew up in the 1960s and was interested in music. He toured dancehalls and ballrooms of southern France with a number of groups over the next decade. Hernández met his music partner Hervé Tholance, an arranger, guitarist, and vocalist, during that period. The two formed a duo and started achieving local success backing French musicians such as Francis Cabrel, Laurent Voulzy, and the French group Gold.

In 1978, Hernández met the producer Jean Vanloo with disco music at its peak, and signed a recording contract. Hernández went to Waterloo, Belgium to work on songs.

"Born to Be Alive"
After working for about a year, the songs were released on the Aariana sub-label Aquarius Records (in France) in November 1978. The first single that was released was the disco song "Born to Be Alive". Its success was immediate, and in January 1979, Hernández received his first gold record from Italy. The song spread throughout Europe, where it hit #1 in France in April and remained there until July. By then, the United States had caught on, and after some remixing, the record was signed to the A-Tom-Mik label and later Columbia Records. The remixed version was released on a commercial 12" single, and it peaked in the US Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart at #1 and crossed over to the Billboard Hot 100 peaking at #16. It sold over one million copies in the US. The track reached #10 in the UK Singles Chart. By year's end, Hernandez had racked up fifty-two gold and platinum record awards from more than fifty different countries.

Post-"Born to Be Alive"
While Hernández was touring the United States, he was accompanied by Vanloo and his friend Jean-Claude Pellerin. Vanloo and Pellerin held auditions in New York that spring for dancers to accompany Hernández on his worldwide tour. The chosen dancers included a young Madonna.

Hernández's follow-ups to "Born to Be Alive" did not fare as well in the US. "Disco Queen" backed with "Show Me The Way You Kiss" sold poorly, but the album Born to Be Alive sold well and won him a Billboard Award in February 1980.

In 1981, Hernández released the import 12" single of "Goodbye", first released on Aariana Records and then a remixed version on the parent-label Aquarius Records (in France). It was not released in the US, although an album followed the single's release, but found no market in the US.

In the 1980s and 1990s, Hernández toured and had occasional appearances on other artists' albums in Europe. Another remix of "Born to Be Alive" appeared in the nightclubs in 1987. In 1995, a compilation of his two albums was released in the US, titled The Best Of Patrick Hernandez on Hot Records. The fourth movie in the National Lampoon's Vacation comedy series, Vegas Vacation, prominently featured "Born to Be Alive". In Canada, the song was used in television advertisements for the Dodge SX 2.0 economy car.

Since its 1978 release, "Born to Be Alive" has sold more than 800,000 units annually under various forms and compilations globally, and it has brought in more than 25 million dollars worldwide. It has also been covered in the Pump It Up series of rhythm dance games.

[Romain]

Next One Hit Wonder

[Romain]

Caroline Loeb - C'est la Ouate - 1986

Album : Loeb CD

Wikipédia :

Caroline Loeb (5 October 1955, Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine) is an actress, radio host, singer, director and French writer. She remains particularly known for her 1980s hit "C'est la ouate".

"C'est la ouate" is a pop song recorded by French artist Caroline Loeb. It was the first single from her album Loeb C.D. and her second single overall. It was released in late 1986 and published by Barclay editions. It became a big hit in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Argentina where it became a top ten hit, and was covered by many artists throughout the years.

This song, which has words of "a derisive and light genre", "is crossed in the field of the classics". French-born singer Amina Annabi and humorist Dominique Farrugia are among the singers who performed the background vocals. There are a 3:48 edit version, a 5:32 extended version and an instrumental version entitled "Lazy dub". The B-side of the vinyl, "And So What", is an adaptation in English-language by Caroline Loeb. The music video, directed by Philippe Gautier, shows model and painter Anh Duong among the dancers. A few months after the original release, in August 1987, the singer recorded a remixed version of her song which was charted in the Netherlands, but she took the pseudonym of Carol'in.

In 1987, when French journalist Yves Mourousi asked President François Mitterrand about what songs he knew, the latter replied : "C'est la ouate". Arie Elmaleh performed a transformative show on the playback of the song in the 2003 film Chouchou by Merzak Allouache. Since 2004, French mutual MAAF uses the song as its jingle advertising, becoming French favorite ad in 2005.

Cover versions and parodies :
The song has been covered by many artists, including French host Sophie Favier in 1996, a South African Dj&Vj Ike Therry in 1997 one of the Top Worldwide Dj's of the 90's (collaboration with 2pac Tupak Shakur etc)..Caroline Loeb she was acting in the Video with Ike Therry.., Star Academy 2 in 2002 (released as a promo CD single), Quaffe (Germany), Vik 20 and Elena for the compilation French Trance vol. 1 in 2003, Deldongo in 2005 and available digitally, Bamby and the dogs, Gennaro Cosmo Parlato on the album Remainders (Italy), Pornois, Biba Binoche (Belgium) and Mastercuts (U.S.) in 2006, Elio Riso, Giori (available digitally) and La Prohibida (Spain) in 2007, Quentin Mosimann on his debut album Duel, Carpacho and Yuyu in 2008.

The song was parodied by André Lamy in 1987 under the title "C'est la droite" on his album Public n°1,[10] by Nadjim Lala in 1987 ("C'est l'kawa't") and by Parolix in 2007 (title : "C'est les maths").

C'est la Ouate

Paresseuse
Par essence elle est paresseuse
Est-ce vraiment la paresse
Ou trop de quoi ou qu'est-ce...
Apparemment elle est heureuse
C'est la plus heureuse des paresseuses

De toutes les matières
C'est la ouate qu'elle préfère
Passive, elle est pensive
En négligé de soie

Pas bosseuse
Et tous les beaux mecs s'usent
Elle s'en fout, elle balance
Son cul avec indolence
Elle s'en fout ell' s'balance
De savoir ce que les autres pensent

De toutes les matières
C'est la ouate qu'elle préfère
Passive, elle est pensive
En négligé de soie

De toutes les matières
C'est la ouate qu'elle préfère
Passive, elle est pensive
En négligé de soie

De toutes les matières
C'est la ouate qu'elle préfère
Passive, elle est pensive
En négligé de soie

Elle déchire les pages de tous les dictionnaires
Elle n'a que quelques mots à son vocabulaire
Amour par terre et somnifères
En d'autres mots elle se laisse faire

De toutes les matières
C'est la ouate qu'elle préfère
Passive, elle est pensive
En négligé de soie

De toutes les matières
C'est la ouate qu'elle préfère
Passive, elle est pensive
En négligé de soie

De toutes les matières
C'est la ouate qu'elle préfère
Passive, elle est pensive
En négligé de soie

De toutes les matières
C'est la ouate qu'elle préfère
Passive, elle est pensive
En négligé de soie

Lazy
She's so lazy
Is that really laziness
Or too much something or something else
Apparently she's happy
She's the happiest lazy girl

From all the contents
That's the cotton she prefers
Passive, she's thoughtful
Abandoning the silk

Not a hard-working
And all the good guys undermined
She doesn't care, she shaking
Her ass with laziness
She doesn't care, she doesn't care
To know what people think about

From all the contents
That's the cotton she prefers
Passive, she's thoughtful
Abandoning the silk

From all the contents
That's the cotton she prefers
Passive, she's thoughtful
Abandoning the silk

From all the contents
That's the cotton she prefers
Passive, she's thoughtful
Abandoning the silk

She's tearing the pages of all the dictionaries
She only knows few words
Love on the floor and sleeping pill
In other words she lets it go

From all the contents
That's the cotton she prefers
Passive, she's thoughtful
Abandoning the silk

From all the contents
That's the cotton she prefers
Passive, she's thoughtful
Abandoning the silk

From all the contents
That's the cotton she prefers
Passive, she's thoughtful
Abandoning the silk

From all the contents
That's the cotton she prefers
Passive, she's thoughtful
Abandoning the silk

[Romain]

Next "Un tube et puis s'en va"

[Romain]

Stardust - Music Sounds Better with You - 1998

Wikipédia :
The project released the popular club track titled "Music Sounds Better with You" in 1998. The song, which is based around a sample from the 1981 song "Fate" by Chaka Khan, was recorded in Paris by Daft House productions, where Bangalter, one half of the popular French house duo Daft Punk, is based. The song was conceived in Rex Club, Paris, where the trio were playing a live set. Bangalter and Braxe created the instrumental, which Diamond instinctively sang the title words over. The next day they laid down the track in the studio, adding the Chaka Khan sample. The song reached #2 in the United Kingdom and spent two weeks at #1 on Billboard Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart in the United States in August and October 1998 respectively.

The song remains the only release of the trio. It is referred to as the worldwide most sold track of the house music genre. Shortly after the release Bangalter was offered 3 million dollars to produce a full Stardust album, but Bangalter, Braxe and Diamond have not worked together since. Diamond and Braxe resumed their ongoing solo careers, and Bangalter, along with his usual partner Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, went on to release the second Daft Punk album, Discovery, as well as releasing other house music tracks solo or with other partners.

The video for "Music Sounds Better with You" was directed by Michel Gondry. It features a boy who has just purchased a toy plane. Back at home, while he builds his plane, he switches channels on his TV to a program which features the top 5 chart songs. Some of the music videos shown have Stardust themselves singing their new song and others, which have a resemblance of 80s music videos including Robert Palmer's "Addicted to Love".

[Romain]

Next "un tube et puis s'en va !"

[Romain]

Marie Myriam - l'oiseau et l'enfant - 1977

Eurovision

Wikipédia :

Marie Myriam (born Myriam Lopes, 8 May 1957, Luluabourg/Kananga, Belgian Congo, now Democratic Republic of the Congo) is a French singer of Portuguese origins. She has a daughter Laureen born in 1982 and a son Rick born in 1990.

Representing France, she won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1977 with L'oiseau et l'enfant ("The bird and the child") with music by Jean Paul Cara and words by Joe Gracy. The single reached #42 in the UK Singles Chart in June 1977. In 1981, Myriam also represented France in the Yamaha Music Festival with the song "Sentimentale"; she came in ninth place. In recent years, she has read out the votes of the French Jury at the Eurovision Song Contest.

She made an appearance at the 50th anniversary concert in Copenhagen, Denmark, in October 2005 as a guest presenter and performer. The same year, Myriam wrote the introduction to the French edition of The Eurovision Song Contest – The Official History by John Kennedy O'Connor.

Myriam was married to music producer Michel Elmosnino from the late 1970s until his death at age 67 on December 20, 2013.



"L'oiseau et l'enfant" ("The Bird and the Child") was the winning song in the Eurovision Song Contest 1977 performed in French by Marie Myriam, who represented France. The song was composed by Jean-Paul Cara and written by Joe Gracy. This is currently the last song to win for France.

The song was the eighteenth and final song performed on the night (following Belgium’s Dream Express with "A Million in One, Two, Three"). At the close of voting, it had received 136 points, coming first in a field of eighteen. Myriam recorded the song in five languages; French, English (as "The Bird and the Child"), German ("Der Vogel und das Mädchen"), Spanish ("El zagal y el ave azul") and her mother tongue Portuguese ("A ave e a infância").

During Preview Week, Myriam's music video showed her performing the song in an open-air atmosphere, in a section of the Square René Viviani in Paris. This preview video is notable for the prominent presence of the gendarmes having to restrain the crowd, some of whom having climbed the noted "oldest tree in Paris" to catch a glimpse of the singer. On the Contest night, she performed in a floor-length orange gown while her five backup singers were clad in black.

It was succeeded as French representative at the 1978 Contest by Joël Prévost with "Il y aura toujours des violons".

Comme un enfant aux yeux de lumière
Qui voit passer au loin les oiseaux
Comme l'oiseau bleu survolant la Terre
Vois comme le monde, le monde est beau

Beau le bateau, dansant sur les vagues
Ivre de vie, d'amour et de vent
Belle la chanson naissante des vagues
Abandonnée au sable blanc

Blanc l'innocent, le sang du poète
Qui en chantant, invente l'amour
Pour que la vie s'habille de fête
Et que la nuit se change en jour

Jour d'une vie où l'aube se lève
Pour réveiller la ville aux yeux lourds
Où les matins effeuillent les rêves
Pour nous donner un monde d'amour

L'amour c'est toi, l'amour c'est moi
L'oiseau c'est toi, l'enfant c'est moi.

Moi je ne suis qu'une fille de l'ombre
Qui voit briller l'étoile du soir
Toi mon étoile qui tisse ma ronde
Viens allumer mon soleil noir

Noire la misère, les hommes et la guerre
Qui croient tenir les rênes du temps
Pays d'amour n'a pas de frontière
Pour ceux qui ont un cœur d'enfant

Comme un enfant aux yeux de lumière
Qui voit passer au loin les oiseaux
Comme l'oiseau bleu survolant la terre
Nous trouverons ce monde d'amour

L'amour c'est toi, l'amour c'est moi
L'oiseau c'est toi, l'enfant c'est moi

L'oiseau c'est toi, l'enfant c'est moi
L'oiseau c'est toi, l'enfant c'est moi.

Like a child with eyes full of light
That sees the birds passing by in the distance
Like the blue bird flying over the earth
See how beautiful the world... the world is

Beautiful is the boat, dancing on the waves
Wild of life, love and wind
Beautiful is the song, coming from the waves
Abandoned to the white sand

White is the innocent, the blood from the poet
Who invents love by singing
So that life gets dressed in feast
And so that night changes to day

Day from a life when dawn breaks
To wake up the town with heavy eyes
When mornings gather the dreams
To give us a world of love

Love, it's you; love, it's me
The bird, it's you; the child, it's me

I'm just a girl of the shade
That sees the evening star shining
You, my star that forms a circle
Come to light my dark sun

Dark are the misery, the men and the war
Which believe that they hold the time's reins
The country of love doesn't have a border
For the ones who have a child's heart

Like a child with eyes full of light
That sees the birds passing by in the distance
Like the blue bird flying over the earth
We will find this world of love

Love, it's you; love, it's me
The bird, it's you; the child, it's me

The bird, it's you; the child, it's me
The bird, it's you; the child, it's me

[Romain]

Another succès sans lendemain

[Romain]

Kamini - Marly-Gomont - 2006

Artist Biography by Evan C. Gutierrez (Allmusic)

French hip-hop artist Kamini Zantoko was born December 8, 1979, in the suburb of Nouvion-en-Thierache, a short distance from the village of Marly-Gomont. Born into a Congolese family and growing up in a region that was almost ubiquitously white would offer him a unique perspective that would serve him well in the long run. His breakthrough hit, "Marly-Gomont," humorously described his experiences as one of only a few black faces in small-town France. Utilizing the Web to popularize his music and videos rather than traditional music industry channels, Zantoko entered the spotlight in 2007 as an Internet-made celebrity. After earning his B.A. in Picardy, Zantoko took work as a psychiatric nurse.
He spent much of his free time working with friends on music, producing "Marly-Gomont" in the fall of 2006. Though the track amused the record execs who heard it, all took a pass on the project. Releasing the song on Fun Radio, Skyrock, and Contact FM, Kamini earned almost instant fame, gaining far greater recognition in a month than the formerly uninterested labels could have offered him in a year. Kamini was named one of Time magazine's 15 personalities Born on the Web in 2006. Follow-up singles such as "J'Suis Blanc" (playing with racial role reversal) and "Un P'tit Coup de Motherfuck" (poking fun at other French rap artists who overly identify with American gang culture) paved the way for Kamini's first full-length record, Psychostar World, which was released in May of 2007. The record hit the Top Ten on national charts, earning a spot on Billboard's European Top 100. Though extremely successful, Zantoko remains committed to his career as a health care provider, ultimately intending to return to his position as a psychiatric nurse.


Wikipédia :

"Marly-Gomont" is the first single by French "agricultural" rapper Kamini, recorded in 2006. It was produced under the RCA Group label and released on November 13, 2006.
The song is Kamini's ode to the small, rural village in Northern France where he grew up, Marly-Gomont. In the song, Kamini laments being from the only black family in town

Dédicacé à tous ceux qui viennent des petits patelins,
Ces petits patelins paumés pour qui personne n'a jamais rappé,
Même pas un flow,
Ces petits patelins paumés que même la France elle sait pas qu'ils sont là chez elle,
Les petits patelins paumés que personne ne connaît, même pas Jean-Pierre Pernault.

Je m'appelle Kamini
Je viens pas de la té-ci
Je viens d'un petit village qui s'appelle Marly-Gomont
Alors qu'on monte sur le beat hein, le beat hein qui fait
Ta da da da din

A Marly Gomont, y a pas de béton
65 ans la moyenne d'âge dans les environs
Un terrain de tennis, un terrain de basket
Trois jeunes dans le village donc pour jouer c'est pas chouette
Je viens d'un village paumé dans l'Aisne, en Picardie
Facilement 95 % de vaches, 5 % d'habitants
Et parmi eux, une seule famille de Noirs
Fallait que ce soit la mienne, putain un vrai cauchemar
J'ai dit à mon père : "On aurait pu aller s'installer à Moscou, non ?
On aurait pas trop été dépaysé par la température ni par les gens."
Il m'a répondu : "Hé et comment ça, mais tu te moques de moi, toi ?
Mais ça va aller hein."
Tu parles, j'avais 6 ans, premier jour d'école et ben j'ai chialé
A cause de ces petits cons là-bas, t'sais comment y m'appelaient ?
"Hé bamboula, hé Petito, hé bamboula, hé le noiraude hé!"
Dans la bouche des enfants réside bien souvent la vérité des parents

(refrain)
Je viens pas de la cité
Mais le beat est bon
je viens pas de Panam
Mais de Marly-Gomont
Y a pas de bitume là-bas
C'est que des pâtures
Mais cela n'empêche que j'ai croisé pas mal d'ordures

A Marly-Gomont, les gens y parlent pas verlan
"Y parlent à l'endroit, comme ça c'est bien suffisant!"
Des fois y t'aiment bien
"J'aime pas les Arabes hein, J'aime pas les Noirs,
Mais toi je t'aime bien, même que t'es noir".
De temps en temps, y font de la politique aussi, avec plein de philosophie
"D'façon moi je dis, tous des pourris hein!"
Dans les petits patelins, faut pas être cardiaque, ah ouais sinon t'es mal,
Faut traverser vingt villages, en tout 50 bornes, pour trouver un hôpital que dalle,
Là bas y a rien, c'est les pâtures
Des fois y a un match de foot le dimanche
Le stade, c'est une pâture
Sur lequel les lignes sont tracées, les buts sont montés...
Et les filets ?
Dans l'équipe du coin, y a toujours un mec qui se fait surnommer Kéké
"Allez Kéké, Allez Kéké!"
Si c'est pas Kéké, dans l'équipe d'en face, y a toujours un mec qui s'appelle Biquette
"Allez Biquette, allez Biquette"

Une journée type dans le coin
Le facteur, un tracteur et rien...
'Fin si une vache de temps en temps

(refrain x2)

Et à l'école maternelle, j'étais le seul Black
Et dans le putain de collège, j'étais le seul Black
Et dans le putain de lycée, j'étais le seul Black,
De la maternelle au lycée, toujours autant de claques
Qui se perdaient dans la nature ou dans la raison
Papa me disait toujours "C'est bien, faut pas se battre, hein fiston."
Mais moi je voulais me révolter, mais là bas, y a rien à cramer
Y a qu'un bus pour le lycée, c'est le même pour le centre aéré
Pas la peine d'aller brûler la voiture du voisin,
Les gens ils en ont pas, ils en ont tous des mobylettes
En plus la boulangerie, elle est à 8 kilomètres
8 kilomètres, tout les matins, à mobylette!
Il est parti où Vincent ? il est parti en catimini ?
"Ah ben non, pas de ça chez nous hein, il est parti en mobylette hein"
Parti en mobylette hein ? le métro des petits patelins
C'est le beat hein, le beat hein qui fait
Ta da da da din,

Dédicacé à tous ceux qui viennent des petits patelins,
Les petits patelins paumés où c'est la misère,
Là où y a rien à faire, là où tout est vert,
Ces petits patelins paumés que personne ne connaît, même pas Jean-Pierre Pernault

(refrain x4)

Dedicated to all those who come from little villages
Those godforsaken little villages nobody ever rapped for
Not even a flow
Those little villages France doesn't even know they are part of it
Those little villages no one knows, not even Jean-Pierre Pernault*

My name is Kamini
I don't come from the ghetto
I come from a little village called Marly-Gomont
So let's go up on the beat huh, the beat huh that goes
Ta da da da din

In Marly-Gomont, roads aren't tarred
The average age is 65 in the surroundings
One single tennis field, one single basketball field
Only three youngsters in the village so for playing that sucks
I come from a village in the middle of nowhere : Aisne, Picardie**
Surely 95 % cows, 5 % inhabitants
And among them, only one black Family
It had to be mine, what a fucking nightmare
I told my father, "We could have moved to Moscow, nuh ?
Wouldn't we have felt like strangers too much because of the temperature and people?"
He replied me, "Hey, what the hell, are you joshing me ?
It'll be fine here, oh"
My eye! I was 6 when, the first school day, I just bawled
Because of those bloody idiots there. Do you know what they called me?
"Hey bambula, hey Pepito, hey bambula, hey nigger!"
Out of children's mouths often comes their parents' truth

(chorus)
I don't come from the ghetto
But here the beat is good
I don't come from Paris
But from Marly-Gomont
The roads aren't tarred
There are only fields
But even so, I met lots of trashes

In Marly-Gomont, people don't speak in slang
"They speak normally and that's pretty enough!"
Sometimes they like you
"I don't like Arabs, I don't like Blacks
But I like you, even though you're Black"
From time to time, they talk about politics with much philosophy
"Anyway, what I say is, they're a rotten bunch!"
In little villages, if yo got a heart condition, you're in a fine mess
You gotta drive past twenty villages, 50 kilometers altogether to find a hospital or nothing
There is nothing but fields
Sometimes there's a soccer game on Sunday
The stadium is a field
Where lines are drawn and goals are assembled
What about the nets?
In the local team, there's always a guy nicknamed Kéké***
"Come on Kéké, come on Kéké!"
If it's not Kéké, in the other team, there's always a guy they call Goatty
"Come on Goatty, come on Goatty!"

A typical day around her
The mailman, a tractor and nothing...
Or maybe just a cow now and then

(chorus x2)

In the kindergarten, I was the only Black
And in the fucking secondary school, I was the only Black
And in the fucking high school, I was the only Black
From kindergarten to high school, always as many slaps
Given for a foolish reasons or gratuitously
Daddy always told me, "That's good, don't fight, huh son?"
But I wanted to rebel, but over there, there's nothing to burn
There's only one bus for the high school, it's the same one for the youth center
There's no point burning the neighbours' car
People don't have, they all have mopeds
On top of that, the bakery stands 8 kilometers far from there
8 kilometers, every morning, on a moped!
Where have Vincent gone? did he secretly go away?
"Oh no, nobody does it here, he left with his moped"
Left with his moped? aka little villages' subway
That's the beat huh, the beat huh that goes
Ta da da da din

Dedicated to all those who come from little villages
Godforsaken little villages, where that's hell
Where there's nothing to do, where everything is green
Those little villages no one knows, not even Jean-Pierre Pernault

(chorus x4)

* An anchorman who's made fun of because he loves making reports about small villages no one has ever heard of =)
** A county and his region, where Marly-Gaumont is.
*** The one who has to go and take the ball back.

Lyrics-translate

[Romain]

Guys (Nassim, Pierre, anybody), I will not be there the next 6 days. If you want to put artist here, you are welcome.

[Romain]

Jean-Patrick Capdevielle - Quand t'es dans le désert - 1979

Album : Les Enfants des Ténèbres et les Anges de la Rue

Artist Biography by Jason Birchmeier

Sometimes likened to a French version of Bruce Springsteen or Lou Reed, Jean-Patrick Capdevielle is a French rock singer/songwriter who broke through to mainstream success in 1979 with his debut album, Les Enfants des Ténèbres et les Anges de la Rue, and the hit single "Quand T'es dans le Désert." Born on December 19, 1945, in Levallois-Perret, Île-de-France, France, he made his recording debut in 1978 with the single Solitude on Ketchup Music. He was then offered a major-label recording contract with CBS Disques and proceeded to release his full-length solo album debut, Les Enfants des Ténèbres et les Anges de la Rue (1979). A classic album of its era, Les Enfants des Ténèbres et les Anges de la Rue spawned a series of singles, "Quand T'es dans le Désert" the most significant hit among them, and to this day remains Capdevielle's most enduring full-length effort, its legacy enhanced by subsequent reissues. In the wake of his breakthrough success, Capdevielle toured heavily and released new albums annually, including 2 (1980), Le Long de la Jetée (1981), L'Ennemi Public (1982), the double live album Dernier Rappel (1983), Mauvaises Fréquentations (1984), and Planète X (1985).
By the mid-'80s, however, Capdevielle's popularity had begun to wane, and he switched labels, moving to Warner Music France for a couple albums, Nouvel Âge (1987) and Vue Sur Cour (1990). These efforts failed to revive his popularity; in fact, during this era Capdevielle had less success as a solo artist than he did as a songwriter. For instance, Linda Williams' scored a hit single with his song "Traces," which went to number 21 on the French singles chart in 1989 -- commercial success Capdevielle couldn't come close to rivaling during this era. Following his unsuccessful tenure on Warner, Capdevielle switched labels again, moving to Virgin for his final full-length effort of the decade, Vertigo (1992). Little came of that album, unfortunately, and for the next decade and a half, the only Capdevielle albums to surface were greatest-hits compilations such as Politiquement Correct (1995) and Quand T'es Dans le Désert (2000). Fifteen years after his last album, Capdevielle returned in 2007 with Hérétique 13, an independent release that was relatively well received.

Moi je traîne dans le désert depuis plus de vingt-huit jours
Et déjà quelques mirages me disent de faire demi-tour
La fée des neiges me suit tapant sur son tambour
Les fantômes du syndicat des marchands de certitudes
Se sont glissés jusqu'à ma dune, reprochant mon attitude
C'est pas très populaire le goût d'la solitude

{Refrain:}
Quand t'es dans le désert
Depuis trop longtemps
Tu t'demandes à qui ça sert
Toutes les règles un peu truquées
Du jeu qu'on veut t'faire jouer
Les yeux bandés

Tous les rapaces du pouvoir menés par un gros clown sinistre
Plongent vers moi sur la musique d'un piètre accordéoniste ,
J'crois pas qu'ils viennent me parler des joies d'la vie d'artiste
D'l'autre côté ,voilà Caïn toujours aussi lunatique
Son œoeil est rempli de sable et sa bouche pleine de verdicts
Il trône dans un cim'tière de vieilles pelles mécaniques

{Au refrain}

Les gens disent que les poètes finissent tous trafiquants d'armes
On est cinquante millions d'poètes, c'est ça qui doit faire notre charme
Sur une lune de Saturne mon perroquet sonne l'alarme
C'est drôle mais tout l'monde s'en fout
Vendredi tombant d'nulle part, y a Robinson solitaire
Qui m'a dit : "J'trouve plus mon île, vous n'auriez pas vu la mer ?"
Va falloir que j'lui parle du thermonucléaire

{Au refrain}

Hier un homme est v'nu vers moi d'une démarche un peu traînante
Il m'a dit : "T'as t'nu combien d'jours ?" J'ai répondu : "Bientôt trente."
Je m'souviens qu'il espérait tenir jusqu'à quarante
Quand j'ai d'mandé son message, il m'a dit d'un air tranquille :
"Les politiciens finiront tous un jour au fond d'un asile
J'ai compris que j'pourrais bientôt regagner la ville."

{Refrain 3x}

I've been training in the desert for more than twenty-eight days
And already some mirages are telling me to turn around
The fairy of snow follows me, tapping on her drum
The ghosts of the union of merchants of certainties
Have glided up to my dune, reproaching my attitude
It's not very popular, this taste for solitude

{Chorus:}
When you're in the desert
For too long
You ask yourself who benefits
From all these rigged rules
Of the game that they want to make you play
Blindfolded

All those who prey on power, led by a big, sinister clown
Plunge towards me on the music of a mediocre accordionist,
I don't think they're coming to talk to me about the joys of an artist's life
From the other side, there is Cain, always so volatile
His eye is full of sand and his mouth full of verdicts
He sits enthroned in a cemetery of old mechanical diggers

{Chorus}

People say that all poets end up trafficking weapons
We are fifty million poets, that should be our appeal
On a moon of Saturn, my parrot sounds the alarm
It's funny but nobody cares
Friday falls from nowhere, there's Robinson, alone,
He said to me: "I can't find my island anymore, have you seen the sea?"
I'm gonna have to talk to him about thermonuclear energy

{Chorus}

Yesterday a man came towards me with a slightly shuffling gait
He asked me, "How many days have you been here?" I responded, "Almost thirty."
I remember that he wanted to stay for forty
When I asked for his message, he said calmly:
"One day, the politicians will all end up in an asylum
I've realized that I will soon be able to return to the town."
Thanks to shisa on Translate Lyrics

[Romain]

Next one hit wonders

[Romain]

Renan Luce - La lettre - 2006

Album : Repenti

Artist Biography by Olivier Duboc (Allmusic)

French singer/songwriter Renan Luce was born in Paris in 1980. He spent his childhood and teenage years in Bretagne, learning to play piano, then saxophone, and finally guitar, and writing a first couple of songs. He moved to Paris in the early 2000s and began playing regularly, eventually catching the attention of Universal Publishing's Olivier Lefebvre. He quickly obtained a regular opening act opportunity with Bénabar, whose songwriting acumen was actually lyrically quite similar.
A first album, Repenti, was released in late 2006, displaying Luce's personal palette of inspiration, ranking from almost-rebel-like intonations to sensitive observations of everyday life. Luce began touring extensively, and Repenti sold well, though very slowly, reaching a peak in early 2008, thanks to the late but massive success of its lead single. Since 2006, Luce's work has earned him many awards and nominations. He received the Académie Charles-Cros price in 2007 and both ‘Best Breakthrough Album' and ‘Best Breakthrough Live Act' Victoires de la musique in 2008. Luce returned in 2009 with the follow-up to his award-winning debut album, Le Clan des Miros. For his second album, he expanded the intelligent songwriting that he showcased in singles "La Fille de la Bande" and "On N'est Pas à une Bêtise Près.”

The video clip :

J’ai reçu une lettre
Il y a un mois peut être
Arrivée par erreur
Maladresse de facteur
Aspergée de parfum
Rouge à lèvre carmin
J’aurais dû cette lettre
Ne pas l'ouvrir peut être

Mais moi je suis un homme
Qui aime bien ce genre d'enjeu
Je veux bien qu'elle me nomme
Alphonse ou Fred c'est comme elle veut
C’est comme elle veut

Des jolies marguerites
Sur le haut de ses "i"
Des courbes manuscrites
Comme dans les abbayes
Quelques fautes d'orthographes
Une légère dyslexie
Et en guise de paraphe
La petite blonde sexy

Et moi je suis un homme
Qui aime bien ce genre de jeu
Je n'aime pas les nones
Et j'en suis tombé amoureux
Amoureux

Elle écrit que dimanche
Elle s'ra sur la falaise
Où je l'ai prise par les hanches
Et que dans l'hypothèse
Où je n’aurais pas le tact
D’assumer mes ébats
Elle choisira l’impact
30 mètres plus bas

Et moi je suis un homme
Qui aime bien ce genre d’enjeu
Je ne veux pas qu’elle s’assomme
Car j’en suis tombé amoureux
Amoureux

Grâce au cachet de la poste
D’une ville sur la manche
J’étais à l’avant poste
Au matin du dimanche
L’endroit était desert
Il faudra être patient
Des blondes suicidaires
Il n’y en a pas 100

Et moi je suis un homme
Qui aime bien ce genre d’enjeu
Je veux battre Newton
Car j’en suis tombé amoureux
Amoureux

Elle surplombait la Manche
Quand je l’ai reconnue
J’ai saisir par la manche
Ma petite ingénue
Qui ne l’était pas tant
Au regard du profil
Qu’un petit habitant
Lui faisait sous le nombril

Et moi je suis un homme
Qui aime bien ce genre d’enjeu
Je veux bien qu’il me donne
(Papa)… S’il le veut

I received a letter
Maybe one month ago
It was a mistake
A mistake by the postman
Sprayed with perfume
Red lipstick
Maybe I shouldn't have
opened this letter

But I am the kind of man
Who likes these stakes
I don't care if she calls me
Alphonse or Fred it is as she wants
As she wants

Pretty daisies
At the top of her "i"
Curves written
Like they do in the abbayes
Some misspellings
A light dyslexia
And by way of signature
A small and sexy blond girl

And me, I am the kind of man
who likes these stakes
I don't like nuns
And I felt in love
In love

She's writing that on Sunday
She will be on the cliff
Where I took her by the hips
And if hypothetically
I wouldn't be tactful enough
To assume my lovemaking
She will choose the impact
30 meters lower

And I am the kind of man
Who likes these stakes
I don't want her to knock herself out
Because I felt in love with her
in love

Thanks to the date stamp
From a city by the Channel
I was at the out-post
In the Sunday morning
The place was deserted
I will have to be patient
Suicidal blonds
Are not numerous

And I am the kind of man
Who likes these stakes
I want to beat Newton
Because I felt in love with her
In love

She was hanging over the Channel
When I recognized her
I took by the sleeve
My naive little girl
Who wasn't that naive
According to the profile
That a little inhabitant
Was making under her belly button

And I am the kind of man
who likes these stakes
He can give to me
(Papa)... If he wants it

[Romain]

Next one.

[Romain]

Zebda - Tomber le chemise - 1998

Album : Essence ordinaire

Artist Biography by Don Snowden (Allmusic)

"We who live by rock and rai and accordion/On the periphery of commercial hits" is a line from Zebda's hometown portrait Toulouse and that's a pretty accurate capsule description of where the French band fronted by three second-generation North African immigrants fits among the Euro-mix crew. Rough-and-ready ragamuffin reggae and rapid-fire rapped vocals, Arabic flourishes, touches of French café accordion, a savvy command of dynamics, and well-constructed arrangements smoothly blending those elements into a distinctive whole complete the musical picture. Zebda never lost touch with the Toulouse neighborhood roots that nourished its biting social commentaries and street-life portrayals, using its popularity and influence to stage cultural and political initiatives back in the 'hood. Zebda (which means butter in Arabic) formed in 1985 to provide the soundtrack for a music video put out by a neighborhood group in Toulouse. Lyricist/vocalist Magyd Cherfi recruited guitarist Pascal Cabero, bassist Joel Saurin, and drummer Vincent Sauvage from his school friends and roped in brothers Mustapha Amokrane and Hakim Amokrane to fill out the tag-team vocal squad. The band kept playing sporadically at neighborhood functions, but re-formed seriously in 1988 with keyboard player Rémi Sanchez completing a lineup that has remained constant ever since. With the Clash, the Specials, James Brown, and Mano Negra among its main influences, the septet developed a strong following playing at small bars and cafés around Toulouse and throughout southwest France. A triumphant April 1990 performance at the prestigious Springtime in Bourges festival in central France brought Zebda to national attention and led to a tour of France, Italy, and England that year. Zebda then signed with Barclay and its 1992 debut Arene des Rumeurs won widespread acclaim for militant lyrics meshed with humor and its multi-faceted sound. After hitting the national tour circuit again, Zebda staged a major festival in 1993 in poorer sectors of Toulouse that featured several other bands, including major French rockers Noir Desir.

Released in 1995, the hard-hitting Le Bruit et L'Odeur (The Noise and Smell) took its title phrase from a speech by conservative French political leader Jacques Chirac. Cherfi and the Amokrane brothers also formed the Tactikollectif Collective in 1997 to support illegal immigrants and released a self-produced album of protest songs from various periods and countries. The mellower, more melodic Essence Ordinaire was Zebda's commercial breakthrough in 1998 when the exuberant "Tomber la Chemise" (Take Off Your Shirt) became a summer hit. Essence Ordinaire went on to platinum status in France, selling 300,000 albums, and the group received the Victoire de la Musique awards for Best Song and Best Group. Commercial success didn't prompt Zebda to turn its back on its Toulouse roots and, convinced music is an important means of political struggle, the group formed the Motivé organization to run a list of independent candidates in the spring 2001 municipal elections. This group uses lyrics celebrating life and diversity as much as they criticize social ills and a multi-faceted musical mix geared toward making audiences think as they dance.

Tous les enfants de ma cité et même d'ailleurs
Et tout ce que la colère a fait de meilleur
Des faces de stalagmites et des jolies filles
Des têtes d'acné en un mot la famille Sont là

Oui tous les enfants de mon quartier et même d'ailleurs
Et tout ce que le béton a fait de meilleur
Des qui voulaient pas payer l'entrée trente balles
Ont envahi la scène ont envahi la salle.

Y'a là des bandits qu'ont des têtes de cailloux
Ceux qu'ont du sentiment autant que les voyous
Attendent qu'on allume un méchant boucan
Et que surgissent de la scène des volcans
Et c'est là:

Refrain

Qu'on a tombé la chemise
Tomber la chemise...

Tous les enfants de ma cité et même d'ailleurs
Et tout ce que la colère a fait de meilleur
Des pas beaux, des faces rondes comme des quilles
Et des têtes rouges, en un mot la famille Sont là

Oui tous les enfants de mon quartier et même d'ailleurs
Et tout ce que le béton a fait de meilleur
Des qui voulaient profiter de la pagaille
D'autres qu'avaient pas slamé depuis un bail

Tout à coup le trac a fait coucou dans la loge
Oh maman qu'elle tourne vite cette horloge
Allez les gars, vous avez promis le soleil
On peut vous dire, ce soir qu'on a pas sommeil

Refrain
On va tomber la chemise
Tomber la chemise...

Tous les petits gavroches et les têtes abîmées
Et les faces de pioche autant que les minets
Ont mis le feu en sautant à l'envers
La tête en bas, c'était pas des paroles en l'air, mais
Oh! là....

On les entend qui crient "allez, pas de manières
Surtout pas de caprices on en a rien à faire
Puis on est pas venu là, dans un monastère
Ni casser la voix, mais péter les artères"

C'est ainsi chez nous et c'est pareil ailleurs

Tout ce que ce vilain monde a fait de meilleur
Se trouvait là, juste pour le plaisir
Ce jour là je peux dire qu'on s'est fait plaisir

Refrain
On va tomber la chemise
Tomber la chemise

lyricstranslate.com
All the children from my ghetto/suburb and beyond
And all the best products of wrath
"Stalagmite faces" and pretty chicks
Pimpleheads - in other words, family - are there

Yes all the children from my neighbourhood and beyond
And all the best products of concrete
Some who did not want to pay five euros (lit.: 30 French francs) entrance fee
Have invaded the stage, and the concert hall

There are thugs with "stone heads"
Those who are as sentimental as hooligans
Are waiting for us to spark a big bad noise
Waiting for volcanoes to come out of the stage
And that's when

We put off our shirts
Put off our shirts

All the children from my ghetto/suburb and beyond
And all the best products of wrath
Some ugly ones, with faces as round as skittles
And rednecks - in a word, family - are there

Yes all the children from my neighbourhood and beyond
And all the best products of concrete
Some who wanted to take advantage of the unrest
Others who had not "slammed" (ie improvised rap lyrics) for ages

Suddenly stage fright came to say hello in the dressing room
Oh mom this clock is going so fast
Come on guys, you have promised the sun
We can tell you we're not sleepy tonight

We're going to put off the shirt
Put off the shirt...

All the little Parisian boys and the damaged faces,
And the ugly guys (lit. pickaxe faces) as much as the pet boys
Have lit up the ambiance by jumping upside down
Head down, and it were no empty words, but Oh

We can hear them shout "Come on, don't play the affected,
And don't be capricious, for we don't care,
We've not come here like in a monastery
We've not come here to break our voices, but to (dance/play dance enough to) break our arteries

That's the way with us and that's the same elsewhere

All the best products of this ugly world
Was here, just for fun
And this very day I can tell you we had fun

We're going to
Put off the shirt
Put off the shirt...


Very difficult translation. Actually it doesn't mean much in French either! Some phrases are colloquial (tête de pioche), but some are more or less invented (faces de stalagmite, têtes de cailloux). More or less the overall meaning is that there's a concert; it looks freaky because the public is very odd; but in the end everybody has fun, and is joyful enough to strip to the waist... Just a note: "casser la voix" (breaking one's voice) is a song by Patrick Bruel, perceived by some as a singer for teenage girls.

[Romain]

NExt On hit wonders.

[Romain]

Jean Schultheis - Confidence pour confidence - 1981

Album : Abracadabra

Je me fous, fous de vous.
Vous m'aimez, mais pas moi.
Moi, je vous voulais mais
Confidence pour confidence,
C'est moi que j'aime à travers vous.

Si vous voulez les caresses,
Restez pas, pas chez moi.
Moi j'aime sans sentiment.
Confidence pour confidence,
C'est moi que j'aime à travers vous.

Mais aimez-moi à genoux, j'en suis fou,
Mais, de vous à moi, je vous avoue
Que je peux vivre sans vous.
Aimez-moi à genoux, j'en suis fou
Et si ça vous fait peur,
Dites-vous que sans moi,

Vous n'êtes rien du tout.
Tout pour rien, rien pour vous.
Vous m'aimez, mais je joue,
J'oublie tout.
Confidence pour confidence
C'est toujours moi que j'aime à travers vous

Vous pleurez, révoltée, taisez-vous.
Vous m'aimez, mais pas moi.
Moi je vous veux pour moi et pas pour vous.
Vous je m'en fous, tant pis pour vous.
Aimez-moi à genoux, j'en suis fou
Et n'oubliez jamais que je joue

Contre vous. Vous pour moi.
Sans vous, vous l'avez voulu, tant pis pour vous,
Aimez-moi.
Confidence pour confidence,
C'est moi que j'aime à travers vous.

Je me fous, fous de vous.
Vous m'aimez, mais pas moi.
Moi, je vous voulais mais
Confidence pour confidence,
C'est moi que j'aime à travers vous.

Si vous voulez les caresses,
Restez pas, pas chez moi.
Moi j'aime sans sentiment.
Confidence pour confidence,
C'est moi que j'aime à travers vous.

Mais je me fous, fous de vous.
Vous m'aimez, mais pas moi.
Moi, je vous voulais mais…

(Here, you is plural, he is talking to a group (I think so))

I don't give a damn, a damn about you / (or I'm making fun of you)
You like me, but I don't (like you)
I wanted you but
Since I'm confiding
It's myself that I love through you

If you want the caresses,
Do not stay, at my place
I love without feelings
Since I'm confiding
It's myself that I love through you

But worship me, I'm mad about it
But, between you and me, I confess to you
That I can live without you
Worship me, I'm mad about it
And if it scares you
Tell yourselves that without me

You're nothing at all
All for nothing, nothing for you
You love me, but I'm playing
I forget everything
Since I'm confiding
It's myself that I love through you

You're crying, outraged, shut up.
You love me, but I don't
I want you for myself and not for you
I don't give a damn about you, too bad for you
Worship me, I'm mad about it
And never forget that I'm playing

Against you. You for me.
Without you, you've wanted that, too bad for you
Love me.
Since I'm confiding
It's myself that I love through you

I don't give a damn, a damn about you / (or I'm making fun of you)
You like me, but I don't (like you)
I wanted you but
Since I'm confiding
It's myself that I love through you

If you want the caresses,
Do not stay, at my place
I love without feelings
Since I'm confiding
It's myself that I love through you
Thanks to MimyTurner in Translate Lyrics.

[Romain]

Next one hit wonder.

[Romain]

Tété - A la faveur de l'automne - 2003

Album : A la faveur de l'automne.

Artist Biography by Evan C. Gutierrez (Allmusic)

French rock/R&B star Tété was born July 25, 1975, in Dakar, the capitol city of his father's homeland, Senegal. When his parents divorced, he returned with his mother to northeastern France, to the town of St. Dizier. As a teen, Tété drew his musical inspiration from the pop and rock music of the day. Using the guitar given him by his mother, he assembled small bands with friends and began experimenting with songwriting, composing mainly in English. In 1998 Tété moved to Paris, playing cafés and busking before forming a successful trio with drummer Alberto Malo and bassist Evy Moon.
Thanks to luck and a unique sound the young men were quickly signed to Sony/Epic, releasing their debut record, L'Air de Rien, in 2001. While working on the record, Tété maintained a busy performing schedule as a solo artist, building a healthy-sized fan base via small Paris clubs and cafés. His polished, infectious live presence was captured on 2003's Par Monts et Vallons, which featured recordings from three different live shows. A year later Tété's second studio production hit the airwaves with a series of well-liked singles. A la Faveur de l'Automne generated radio hits such as "Emma Stanton" and the title track, "A la Faveur de l'Automne." Large venue performances and international touring the following summer brought Tété from the underground scene to the mainstream market. His 2006 release Le Sacre des Lemmings et Autres Contes de la Lisiere addressed an array of social themes, his first overtly political project.

Posté devant la fenêtre,
Je guette
Les âmes esseulées
A la faveur de l'automne.

Posté devant la fenêtre,
Je regrette
De n'y avoir songé,
Maintenant que tu abandonnes.

A la faveur de l'automne
Revient cette douce mélancolie.

Un, deux, trois, quatre -
Un peu comme on fredonne
De vieilles mélodies.

Rivé devant le téléphone,
J'attends
Que tu daignes m'appeler,
Que tu te décides enfin.

Toi, tes allures de garçonne
Rompiez un peu la monotonie
De mes journées, de mes nuits.

A la faveur de l'automne
Revient cette douce mélancolie.

Un, deux, trois, quatre -
Un peu comme on fredonne
De vieilles mélodies.

A la faveur de l'automne,
Tu redonnes
A ma mélancolie
Ses couleurs de super scopitone.
A la faveur de l'automne.

Comment ai-je pu
Seulement être aussi bête ?
On m'avait prévenu.
Voici la vérité nue.

Manquerait
Plus que le mauvais temps
S'y mette.
Une goutte de pluie et
J'aurai vraiment tout perdu.

Gazing out the window
I'm looking
For forsaken souls
Under cover of autumn

Gazing out the window
I wish
I had thought about it
Now that you're giving up

Under cover of autumn
The sweet melancholy comes back

One, two, three, four -
A bit like they hum
Old melodies

Staring at the phone
I'm waiting
Until you deign to call me
Until you make up your mind at last

You and your tomboy looks
Used to break the monotony
Of my days, of my nights

Under cover of autumn
That sweet melancholy is coming back

One, two, three, four -
A bit like they hum
Old melodies

Under cover of autumn
You give back
My melancholy
Its colors of super scopitone [jukebox]
Under cover of autumn

How could I
Merely be so stupid?
I was warned before
This is the plain truth

It'd be the last straw
If the bad weather
Meddled with it
A rain drop and
I really have lost everything

[Romain]

NExt one hit wonder

[Romain]

Thierry Hazard - Le Jerk - 1990

Wikipédia :

Thierry Hazard (born June 7, 1962), whose real name is Thierry Gesteau, is a French singer.
Hazard was born in Compiègne, France, and grew up in Sèvres. During the 1980s, he became the singer of the band GPS, an acronym of Garage Psychiatric Suburban (the group's guitarist, Tom "Backerfix" Darnal, became Mano Negra's keyboardist). Hazard released his first solo single "Poupée psychédélique" in 1988 but it passed unnoticed. Two years after, he released "Le Jerk" which became a huge hit in summer 1990 (#2 in France). His first solo album Pop music was released in 1990 and had a great success thanks to the two titles mentioned above ("Poupée psychédélique" was re-released at the end of 1990, reaching #2 in France), but also with other songs which were much aired on radio such as "Les Brouillards de Londres", "Un Jour c'est oui, un Jour c'est non" and "Les Temps sont durs". A cover of Michel Polnareff's song, "Tout, Tout, pour ma chérie", is also included on this album. In 1994, Hazard launched his second album entitled Où sont passés les Beatniks? with the singles "Julie est trop prude" and "Où sont passés les Beatniks?" but they didn't meet with success.

The song:
"Le Jerk" is a 1990 song recorded by the French musician, songwriter and singer known under the pseudonym of Thierry Hazard. It is the first single from his debut album Pop Music and was one of the 1990 summer hits in France. It is also Hazard's signature song, although he has released other successful songs.

The song was actually released as single in 1989. But then it passed unnoticed (as the previous single "Poupée psychédélique", in 1988). "Le Jerk" was re-released the year after, just at the beginning of the summer.
The song's name refers to a 70s popular dance and was also given to Hazard's best of Le Jerk, released in July 2001.
The single's cover was made by the French designer Serge Clerc. The role of Roger is played by Christophe Salengro, a French actor and dancer.

"Le Jerk" was a huge success in the French discothèques. Elia Habib, a specialist of the French charts, considers that this is due to the "modern and lively writing" of the song.
The song tells the story of two characters, Joséphine and Roger, who have a routine life (she works as a secretary while he works in a factory). Both are eagerly awaiting the end of each day to take the bus to go dancing the jerk at 'La Boîte à Gogos'. There, they meet, fall in love, get married and give birth to quadruplets, named Gustave, Alphonse, Arthur and Philibert. Thus, the jerk had saved from their monotonous universe and made them able to discover love.
The song has been accused of plagiarism by the publisher of Jean-Jacques Goldman, as the song's refrain is similar to that of "Quand la musique est bonne". However, the court action was cancelled.
The song is performed with two black female vocalists who appear in the music video.


The video clip :

Toute la journée au téléphone ou à taper à la machine
Les yeux rivés sur sa kelton, Joséphine attend qu'ça se termine
Elle se dit qu'avec son tour de poitrine, du genre Dolly Partone
Elle pourrait poser dans les magazines, comme Olivia Newton John

Quand joséphine sort du bureau
Elle passe ausitôt chez sa cousine Berthe
Ensemble elles courent au club à gogo
Pour aller danser le Jerk, sur de la musique Pop
Sous les éclairs, des stroboscopes,
Elles dansent le Jerk

Roger travaille dans une usine qui sent bon l'oxyde de carbone
Tous les midis à la cantine, il mange du poulet aux hormones
Roger admire beaucoup Lenine, Roger admire beaucoup Lennon
Et dans la fanfare de l'usine, tous les dimanches, il joue du trombone

Et quand Roger sort du bureau
Il prend le bus de 18 heures 17
Et file tout droit au club à gogo
Pour aller danser le Jerk, sur de la musique Pop
Sous les éclairs, des stroboscopes,
Ils dansent le Jerk

Un soir Roger rencontra Joséphine, il lui dit c'que vous êtes migonne
Vous êtes belle comme une speakerine, venez chez moi j'vous jouerai du trombone
Et par un beau matin d'hiver, Joséphine et Roger se marièrent
Ils eurent des quadruplés qu'ils prénommèrent
Gustave Alphonse Arthur et Philibert

Et leur apprirent le ...
Et leur apprirent le ...
Et leur apprirent le djer djer djer djer le jerk sur de la musique Pop
Et tous ensembles, quand vient le soir, ils prennent le bus de 18h17
Pour aller danser le Jerk, sur de la musique Pop
Toute la nuit, comme à Woodstock, ils dansent le Jerk

All day on the phone or typing on the machine
Her eyes riveted on her Kelton, Josephine waits for it [her day] to end.
She says that with the size of her chest, like Dolly Parton
She could pose in magaizines, like Olivia Newton John.

When Josephine leaves the office
She goes right away to her cousin Bertha's place.
Together they run to the gogo club
To dance the Jerk, to pop music
Under the spotlights, the strobe lights,
They dance the Jerk.

Roger works in a factory that smells strongly of carbon monoxide.
Every midday in the cafeteria, he eats chicken full of hormones.
Roger admires Lenin a lot, Roger admires Lennon a lot
And every Sunday in the factory's brass band he plays trombone.

And when Roger leaves the office
He takes the 6:17 PM bus
And makes a bee line for the gogo club
To dance the Jerk, to pop music
Under the spotlights, the strobe lights,
They dance the Jerk.

One night Roger met Josephine, he told her, "You are so cute,
You are as pretty as a TV host, come to my place I'll play trombone for you."
And one fine winter morning, Josephine and Roger got married.
They had quadruplets they named
Gustave, Alphonse, Arthur, and Philibert.

And they taught them the ...
And they taught them the ...
And they taught them the jer jer jer jer Jerk to pop music
And all together, when night falls, they take the 6:17 PM bus
To go dance the Jerk, to pop music
All night long, like at Woodstock, they dance the Jerk.
Thanks to Grampa Wild Willy in Lyrics Translate

[Romain]

Next one hit wonder

[Romain]

Antoine - Les élucubrations - 1966

The scopitone (video-clip)

Oh, Yeah !
Ma mère m'a dit, Antoine, fais-toi couper les cheveux,
Je lui ai dit, ma mère, dans vingt ans si tu veux,
Je ne les garde pas pour me faire remarquer,
Ni parce que je trouve ça beau,
Mais parce que ça me plaît.

Oh, Yeah !
L'autre jour, j'écoute la radio en me réveillant,
C'était Yvette Horner qui jouait de l'accordéon,
Ton accordéon me fatigue Yvette,
Si tu jouais plutôt de la clarinette.

Oh, Yeah !
Mon meilleur ami, si vous le connaissiez,
Vous ne pourriez plus vous en séparer,
L'autre jour, il n'était pas très malin,
Il a pris un laxatif au lieu de prendre le train.

Oh, Yeah !
Avec mon petit cousin qui a dix ans,
On regardait "Gros Nounours" à la télévision,
À Nounours il a dit "Bonne nuit mon bonhomme",
Il est parti danser le jerk au Paladium.

Oh, Yeah !
Le juge a dit à Jules, vous avez tué,
Oui j'ai tué ma femme, pourtant je l'aimais,
Le juge a dit à Jules "Vous aurez vingt ans",
Jules a dit : "Quand on aime on a toujours vingt ans".

Oh, Yeah !
Tout devrait changer tout le temps,
Le monde serait bien plus amusant,
On verrait des avions dans les couloirs du métro,
Et Johnny Hallyday en cage à Médrano.

Oh, Yeah !
Si je porte des chemises à fleurs,
C'est que je suis en avance de deux ou trois longueurs,
Ce n'est qu'une question de saison,
Les vôtres n'ont encore que des boutons.

Oh, Yeah !
J'ai reçu une lettre de la Présidence
Me demandant, Antoine, vous avez du bon sens,
Comment faire pour enrichir le pays ?
Mettez la pilule en vente dans les Monoprix.

Oh, Yeeeeaaaahhhh !

Oh, Yeah!
My mother told me, Anthony, do you cut hair
I told my mother, in twenty years if you want,
I do not care to be noticed,
Not because I find it beautiful,
But because I like it.

Oh, Yeah!
The other day, I listen to the radio when I woke up
Yvette Horner, who was playing the accordion,
Your accordion get tired Yvette
If you played the clarinet instead.

Oh, Yeah!
My best friend, if you knew him,
You could more you separate,
The other day, it was not very smart,
It took a laxative instead of taking the train.

Oh, Yeah!
With my little cousin who is ten years
We watched "Big Teddy Bear" on television,
A teddy bear he said "Good night my good man"
He started dancing the jerk at the Paladium.

Oh, Yeah!
The judge said to Jules, you have killed,
Yes I killed my wife, who I loved
The judge told Jules "You have twenty years"
Jules said: "When you love you always twenty years."

Oh, Yeah!
Everything should change all the time,
The world would be much more fun
There would airplanes in the corridors of the subway
And Johnny Hallyday in cages Medrano.

Oh, Yeah!
If I wear shirts with flowers
Because I'm ahead of two or three lengths,
This is a matter of season
Yours will still have only buttons.

Oh, Yeah!
I received a letter from the Presidency
Wondering, Antoine, you have common sense,
How to enrich the country?
Put the pill on sale in the supermarket.

[Romain]

Next one hit wonder

[Romain]

Desireless - Voyage Voyage - 1987

Artist Biography by Yuri German (Allmusic)

Claudie Fritsch, born on December 25, 1952 in Paris, grew up in Tréport, and in the early '70s she became a fashion designer. Drawn into the musical orbit by her friends, she began singing with various jazz, new wave, and R&B bands in the early '80s. In 1983 she met Jean Michel Rivat, a composer and producer who had already made his name working with Joe Dassin, Michel Delpech, France Gall, and Patrick Juvet, among many others. In 1986, Rivat composed for her "Voyage Voyage," an extremely catchy synth pop number that topped the charts in many European countries and even hit number five in Britain, a remarkable feat for a French-language song.

The singer's deliberately androgynous look -- complete with a porcupine-style hairdo -- made her one of the most colorful personalities to grace the European pop scene, while her moniker, Desireless, was reportedly inspired by her voyage to India and her subsequent interest in its philosophy of acceptance and inner serenity. She released her first album, Francois in 1990, with the opening track "Qui Sommes Nous" becoming her third and last hit (the second one was "John" in 1987). Then she decided to take a break and gave birth to a daughter, Lili. Desireless' second album, I Love You came out in 1994. This time she co-wrote all the compositions, which rendered the album more quiet and personal. Though that release was generally well-received, the lack of promotion made it short-lived. In 1995, the artist decided to abandon city life and move to a picturesque rural area with her boyfriend and daughter. Both of her albums were reissued on CD in the late '90s with bonus tracks added. Desireless started the new millennium with a series of acoustic concerts across France and began work on a third album, which included songs from that tour.


Wikipédia :
"Voyage, voyage" ([vwa.jaʒ vwa.jaʒ]) is a song co-written by Dominique Albert Dubois and Jean-Michel Rivat and recorded by the French singer Desireless. It was the first single from her debut album François released at the end of 1986. Despite being sung entirely in French, the song circumvented the language barrier on the music charts and became a huge worldwide hit between 1986 and 1988, reaching the top position in more than ten countries around the world.

29 000 000 view in youtube??? I have no idear it was a sucess out of France.

Au-dessus des vieux volcans
Glisse tes ailes sous le tapis du vent
Voyage, voyage, éternellement
De nuages en marecages
De vents d'Espagne en pluies d'Equateur
Voyage, voyage, vole dans le hauteurs
Au-dessus des capitales, des idées fatales
Regarde l'océan

Voyage, voyage, plus loin que la nuit et le jour
Voyage, dans l'espace inouï de l'amour
Voyage, voyage, sur l'eau sacrée d'un fleuve indien
Voyage, et jamais ne reviens

Sur le Gange ou l'Amazone
Chez les blacks, chez les sickhs, chez les jaunes
Voyage, voyage, dans tout le royaume
Sur les dunes du Sahara
De îles Fidji au Fujiyama
Voyage, voyage, ne t'arrête pas
Au-dessus des barbelés, des coeurs bombardés
Regarde l'océan

Voyage, voyage, plus loin que la nuit et le jour
Voyage, dans l'espace inouï de l'amour
Voyage, voyage, sur l'eau sacrée d'un fleuve indien
Voyage, et jamais ne reviens

Au-dessus des capitales, des idées fatales
Regarde l'océan

Voyage, voyage, plus loin que la nuit et le jour
Voyage, dans l'espace inouï de l'amour
Voyage, voyage, sur l'eau sacrée d'un fleuve indien
Voyage, voyage

Above the ancient volcanoes
Slide your wings under the carpet of the wind
Travel, travel, eternally
Of clouds in swamps
Of wind in Spain in the rain from Ecuador
Travel, travel, fly to the highest heights
Above the capitals, fatal ideas
Look at the ocean

Travel, travel, further than the night and the day
Travel, in spaces unheard of by love
Travel, travel, on the sacred waters of an Indian river
Travel, and never come back

On the Ganges or the Amazon
With people of all races
Travel, travel, throughout the land
On the dunes of the Sahara
From Fiji to Fujiyama
Travel, travel, don't you stop
Above Barbal, with hearts bombarded
Look at the ocean

Travel, travel, further than the night and the day
Travel, in spaces unheard of by love
Travel, travel, on the sacred waters of an Indian river
Travel, and never come back

Above the capitals, the fatal ideas
Look at the ocean

Travel, travel, further than the night and the day
Travel, in spaces unheard of by love
Travel, travel, on the sacred waters of an Indian river
Travel, travel

[Romain]

NExt on hit wonders

[Romain]

Pascal Danel - Les neiges du Kilimanjaro - 1966

Wikipédia :

Pascal Danel (born March 31, 1944 in Paris, France) is a French pop singer and composer. He started his career as a singer in 1964. After two minor hits, he scored a number 1 hit single in France and various European countries with "La Plage aux Romantiques", a gold disc in 1966, followed in 1967 by the international success of "Kilimandjaro", a platinum and number 1 single, recorded by Danel in six languages. The song was recorded more than 180 times by various international artists, and is one of the biggest French standards of the decade.

He then recorded many of his songs not only in French, but also in Italian, Spanish or Japanese, and toured internationally. In 1972, he came in third place in the Rose d'Or d'Antibes song festival singing "Ton Ame".

Many hits followed, including another N°1 with "Comme Une Enfant" and several Top 10 hits in the late 1960s and 1970s. Some other singles were nevertheless only minor hits.

In 1979, "La Plage aux Romantiques" hit the Top 5 again, Danel toured again, and released a live album, as well as new songs. Danel came back in the mid 80's as a successful TV producer, and hit the charts again in 1989 with a compilation produced by his son Jean-Pierre Danel, an acclaimed guitarist and producer, earning Danel another gold disc. His last album with new material was published in 2000.

In 2007, he duetted on his son's Top 10 album for an instrumental guitar version of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", which will be a Top 30 hit single in 2009, when released as a single from Jean-Pierre Danel's best of.

Between 2007 and 2009, Pascal was one of the few members of a major two years and a half long nostalgic tour, along with some icons of the 1960s, playing sold out concerts in the biggest French concert halls. The tour sold 1,750,000 tickets.

The song :
"Kilimandjaro", sometimes known as "Les Neiges du Kilimandjaro" is a famous French-language song by French singer Pascal Danel released in 1966 that was considered as one of the definitive French songs of the 1960s and the biggest hit of Danel and one of the most broadcast French songs on French radio. The lyrics were written by Michel Delancray and the music was composed by Danel himself. The arrangement of the song was by Laurent Voulzy. The song was certified platinum topping the French charts and it has been subject of tens of cover versions and in many languages.

The song was successful in many European countries, the Middle East and Asia, most particularly Japan. Pascal Danel released many language versions including Italian, Spanish, German, Japanese, Corsican.

Later on, he sang it live at the Olympia in 1980 and in the 2007 tour "Âge tendre" and 2008 tour "Têtes de bois" and revised orchestration versions. Other artists have also interpreted the song German, Spanish, Hebrew, Portuguese with chart successes in various countries with foreign-language versions.

In 1989, Pascal Danel proposed a remixed version of "Kilimandjaro" that was produced by his son, and the album containing the remix was certified gold.

Il n´ira pas beaucoup plus loin
La nuit viendra bientôt
Il voit là-bas dans le lointain
Les neiges du Kilimandjaro

Elles te feront un blanc manteau
Où tu pourras dormir
Elles te feront un blanc manteau
Où tu pourras dormir, dormir, dormir

Dans son délire il lui revient
La fille qu´il aimait
Ils s´en allaient main dans la main
Il la revoit quand elle riait

Elles te feront un blanc manteau
Où tu pourras dormir
Elles te feront un blanc manteau
Où tu pourras dormir, dormir, dormir

Voilà sans doute à quoi il pense
Il va mourir bientôt
Elles n´ont jamais été si blanches
Les neiges du Kilimandjaro

Elles te feront un blanc manteau
Où tu pourras dormir
Elles te feront un blanc manteau
Où tu pourras dormir, dormir, bientôt


He will not go much further
The night will soon come
He sees there, in the distance
The snows of Kilimanjaro

They will make you a white coat
Where you can sleep
They will make you a white coat
Where you can sleep, sleep, sleep

In his delirium he reviews
The girl he loved
They walk together hand in hand
He review her laughter

They will make you a white coat
Where you can sleep
They will make you a white coat
Where you can sleep, sleep, sleep

Without a doubt, she's the one whom he thinks now
He will die soon
Never have they been so white
The snows of Kilimanjaro

They will make you a white coat
Where you can sleep
They will make you a white coat
Where soon you can sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep now

[Romain]

Next one hit wonders.

[Romain]

Mickey 3D - Respire - 2003

Album : Tu va pas mourir de rire

Artist Biography by Jason Birchmeier (Allmusic)

Mickey 3d are an award-winning French alternative rock band who made their major-label debut in 2000 and grew increasingly popular over the course of the decade. Founded in 1996 in Saint-Étienne, Rhône-Alpes, the band is comprised of singer/songwriter Mickaël Furnon (guitar), Aurélien Joanin (drums), and Najah el Mahmoud (keyboards). During the late '90s Mickey 3d released a few demo tapes (Le Souffle Court, 1996; Mickey 3d, 1997; L'Amour, 1998) before the band was signed to a recording contract with the independent label Premier Disque and made its label debut with the album Mistigri Torture (1999). Comprised in large part of songs previously released on the band's home-recorded demo tapes, plus some newly recorded studio material, Mistigri Torture was licensed for major-label reissue in 2000 by Virgin Music France, which also signed Mickey 3d to a recording contract and released the song "La France a Peur" as a single. Successive releases on Virgin were increasingly successful: second album La Trêve (2001) marked the band's first appearance on the French albums chart and spawned a few singles; third album Tu Vas Pas Mourir de Rire (2003) reached the Top 20 and spawned the band's first major hit, the Top 20 single "Respire"; the live album Live à Saint-Étienne (2004) also made the Top 20 and spawned a major hit, the Top 40 single "Johnny Rep"; and fourth studio album Matador (2005) was the most successful of all, reaching number three on the albums chart and spawning a series of singles, including the Top 40 title track. In addition to commercial success, Mickey 3d also earned critical accolades, including a Prix Constantin in 2003 and Victoires de la Musique awards in 2004 for Rock Album of the Year, Original Song of the Year, and Music Video of the Year. In 2009, Mickey 3d returned with their sixth album La Grande Évasion, which featured the single "Méfie-toi L'Escargot".

Wikipédia :
"Respire" is one of Mickey 3D's most popular songs. Released in March 2003, it met success in France, Belgium and Switzerland. Like many French rock songs the topic is about a controversial and realistic subject, in this case, the environment and its destruction.
The text of the song addresses a "kid" to alert him about the state of the world that adults will leave to him. The first part of the song deals with the story of the humans when they arrived on Earth and had messed up the whole balance of the nature. The second part imagines the future of the men if they continue to do so (referring to the disappearance of natural resources, animals and even genetic modification because of the pollution) and how the "kid" will try to warrant to his grandchildren why he did nothing to prevent it. The third part concludes with a declaration on the selfishness of humans and leans more towards pessimism.

Approche-toi petit, écoute-moi gamin,
Je vais te raconter l'histoire de l'être humain
Au début y avait rien au début c'était bien
La nature avançait y avait pas de chemin
Puis l'homme a débarqué avec ses gros souliers
Des coups d'pieds dans la gueule pour se faire respecter
Des routes à sens unique il s'est mis à tracer
Les flèches dans la plaine se sont multipliées
Et tous les éléments se sont vus maîtrisés
En 2 temps 3 mouvements l'histoire était pliée
C'est pas demain la veille qu'on fera marche arrière
On a même commencé à polluer le désert

Il faut que tu respires, et ça c'est rien de le dire
Tu vas pas mourir de rire, et c'est pas rien de le dire

D'ici quelques années on aura bouffé la feuille
Et tes petits-enfants ils n'auront plus qu'un oeil
En plein milieu du front ils te demanderont
Pourquoi toi t'en as 2 tu passeras pour un con
Ils te diront comment t'as pu laisser faire ça
T'auras beau te défendre leur expliquer tout bas
C'est pas ma faute à moi, c'est la faute aux anciens
Mais y aura plus personne pour te laver les mains
Tu leur raconteras l'époque où tu pouvais
Manger des fruits dans l'herbe allongé dans les prés
Y avait des animaux partout dans la forêt,
Au début du printemps, les oiseaux revenaient

Il faut que tu respires, et ça c'est rien de le dire
Tu vas pas mourir de rire, et c'est pas rien de le dire
Il faut que tu respires, c'est demain que tout empire
Tu vas pas mourir de rire, et c'est pas rien de le dire

Le pire dans cette histoire c'est qu'on est des esclaves
Quelque part assassin, ici bien incapable
De regarder les arbres sans se sentir coupable
A moitié défroqués, 100 pour cent misérables
Alors voilà petit, l'histoire de l'être humain
C'est pas joli joli, et j'connais pas la fin
T'es pas né dans un chou mais plutôt dans un trou
Qu'on remplit tous les jours comme une fosse à purin

Come closer, listen to me little boy
I will tell you the story of the human being
In the beginning there was nothing, everything was fine
Nature was going its way and there was no path
Then man came along in his big boots
A few kicks in the face to gain some respect
He started to line out one-way roads
The pinnacles on the plain started to multiply
And all the elements had to witness their domestication
In a blink of an eye history was shaped
It's still going to take a while before we will start to go backwards
We have even started to pollute the desert

You have to breathe, it takes nothing to tell you that
You're not going to die of laughing, this should be said

A few years from now we will be the ones responsible for loosing the game
And our grand-children will have just one eye
And they're going to ask you straight on
Why do you have two of these, you look stupid
They will ask you why did you let alll of this happen
And you will try in vain to explain it them in a low voice
That's not my fault, it's our ancestors' fault
But there will be no one to wash your hands
You will tell them of the time where you could
Eat fruits while lying in the grass nearby
There were animals all over the forest
In the springtime the birds would return

You have to breathe, it takes nothing to tell you that
You're not going to die of laughing, this should be said
You have to breathe because tomorrow everything will be worse
You're not going to die of laughing, this should be said

The worst thing about this is that we are slaves
And also assassins to a certain degree but incapable
To look at the trees without feeling guilty
Partially you have given up on your faith, a hundred percent pitiable
So you see my little one this is the story of the human being
It's not so nice and I don't know how it ends
You weren't born in a cabbage-head (~ you weren't found under a gooseberry bush) rather in a hole
That is filled up everyday like a cesspit

[Romain]

Next one hit wonders

[Romain]

Dimitri from Paris - Sacré Français - 1996

Album : Sacrebleu

Artist Biography by John Bush (Allmusic)

Compared to his cohorts in the new wave of French dance music, Dimitri from Paris looks much farther afield for his influences. While both Air and Daft Punk make much of their affection for the music of the 1970s (prog and disco, respectively), Monsieur Dimitri's inspiration comes from the Continental jet-setting faux-jazz of the 1950s and early '60s (exemplified by Dick Hyman, John Barry, and Martin Denny), though the whole is updated by his long years of experience as a house DJ.

Based in France though he was born in Turkey, Dimitri entered the dance music community during the mid-'80s by DJing at the French Radio 7. By 1990, his reputation had allowed him to record soundtracks for fashion barons like Chanel, Lagerfeld, and Gaultier. He released two solo EPs during 1993-1994, plus the mini-LP Esquisses, and contributed to the Yellow Productions compilation La Yellow 357. He also remixed hundreds of artists, including Björk, the Brand New Heavies, New Order, James Brown, and Etienne Daho. Dimitri's debut album, Sacrebleu, appeared in late 1996, also on Yellow Productions. Named Album of the Year by MixMag, it sold several hundred thousand copies around the world and finally received an American release in early 1998. The 1997 mix album Monsieur Dimitri's De-Luxe House of Funk, however, showed the Frenchman coming back to his house roots. In lieu of a second production album, he mixed several more sets: ICU Session, Vol. 3, A Night at the Playboy Mansion, the BBE box set Disco Forever, Super Disco Friends, and a collaborative mix set with the Idjut Boys titled Night Dubbin'.