The first of this summer’s carte postales takes its inspiration from songs with a Gallic title. Vive la France!

First Word

I know it’s a bit of an obvious move but I couldn’t resist kicking off with a French theme. A series of six songs with French titles but some, if not all, of the lyrics in English. There are no French singers involved at all – yes, it’s a Plastic Bertrand-free zone! All the songs date from a nine-year period from 1974 to 1983 and tells you a lot about how my musical brain works. A selected French lyric is provided for each song – excusez-moi for any missing accents and if the grammar is wrong.

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Tour De France – Kraftwerk (1983)

“Crevaison sur les pavés/Le vélo vite réparé”

If the overall theme is obvious then opting for this as an opener is even more so! This was the Düsseldorf-based electronic pioneers’ stand-alone single from 1983 which charted in the UK top 30. The cult band had achieved a commercial breakthrough two years earlier with the double A-side single featuring The Model, taken from the 1978 LP The Man-Machine and Computer Love taken from their 1981 album Computer World. It went to No1 in the UK and significantly increased their profile.

As well as the expected classy electronics (that synth glissando is magnificent!), it’s full of panting cyclists and what sounds like clanking bike chains at one point. Being Scottish, I can’t really tell if the French lyric is sung with a German accent but it sounds pretty cool to me.

I loved the line drawn sleeve showing members of the band on racing bikes in a paceline against a French flag backdrop. Apparently they nicked the idea from a 1953 Hungarian postcard – very Kraftwerk!

Footnote. As Lynn and I drove south on the A5 towards Dijon on Sunday, the Tour passed over the road as it made its way to Troyes. Wonder what the French for serendipity is?

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Reconnez Cherie – Wreckless Eric (1978)

“C’est la vie, c’est le tricolor”

It’s incredible to think that Wreckless Eric’s debut appearance on the blog is not Whole Wide World, his classic first single from 1977. In my final year at school, its two-chord wonder was the soundtrack to that autumn. He did a decent version of it with The Proclaimers on their 2008 LP Life With You but the nail in its coffin was a truly terrible re-write he did two years earlier for England’s 2006 World Cup campaign which, like England’s cup-winning dreams, bombed without trace.

Wreckless Eric (who has the much less interesting real name of Eric Goulden) was one of the first wave of artists that Dave Robinson and Jake Riviera signed for Stiff Records in 1977 and he toured alongside Elvis Costello, Ian Dury, Larry Wallis and Nick Lowe on the infamous Stiff package tour that year. Reconnez Cherie was performed at these shows and was Eric’s second single released in February 1978 and it is a beauty. A tale of young love with a French girl, the opening English couplet sets the scene that this is no romantic stroll down the Seine: “On a convenient seat by the lavatories in the sodium glare/We used to wait for the bus in a passionate clutch and go as far as we dare”. Produced by Larry Wallis, it is a witty and charmingly ramshackle pop song, typical of the era – with added accordion to give it that certain ‘je ne sais quoi’.

A footnote on Whole Wide World. Despite the travesty of the football version, the original refuses to die. In 2022 travel company Expedia used it on a TV ad starring Ewan McGregor which aired durting that year’s Super Bowl which was watched by 200 million people. Whole Wide World’s streaming figures soared to over 16.3 million on Spotify!

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Traison (C’est just une histoire) – The Teardrop Explodes (1981)

“Je vivais en plein changement/Prêt pour vous à mourir”

Treason (It’s Just a Story) was originally released as a single by The Teardrop Explodes in February 1980 on the Zoo label. It did nothing in terms of sales but continued to build the reputation of Julian Cope’s hip psych-rock band who emerged from the scene around the Liverpool club Eric’s, along with Echo & The Bunnymen. The gloriously-trippy next single When I Dream scraped into the top fifty but the band finally got their breakthrough hit when Reward punched its way into the top ten in February 1981. Treason was then re-mixed by Hugh Jones and re-released in May 1981 as the follow-up single with a shortened title reaching No18. The twelve inch single I bought included this French translation version which is the only song on the playlist this week entirely in French. The sleeve bears the legend: ‘Translation by Francis Laferriere’ but I have no real idea why Cope decided the song needed a French version. I did find an interview he did where he described writing the song in minor chords and goofing on the style of Yorkshire songwriter and poet Jake Thackery. His odd conclusion was that the tune emerged with ‘a lugubrious charm and a big Gallic gob’. I guess he wanted to test that conclusion out when the song was re-recorded!

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Blondie – Denis (1978)

“Denis, Denis/Embrasse moi ce soir”

Denis wasn’t the first Blondie single – X-Offender, In The Flesh and the excellent Rip Her To Shreds (see WIS 15Dec23) preceded it but it was the song that broke the band in the UK when released in February 1978. I have a very distinct memory of where I first heard it which was in the kitchen of my parent’s house while eating my breakfast – probably Kellogg’s Cornflakes. I was sat on a stool at a pull-out table that my dad had built out of old scrap wood (he was always building things out of old “bits of wid” that he had squirreled away) and this latest contraption cantilevered out over the twin-tub washing machine. For more on twin-tubs see Dave Heatley’s brilliant guest blog from a few weeks ago.

Anyway, I must have won the battle with my mum to be allowed to listen to Radio 1 over breakfast as she was normally tuned to the Radio Scotland news programme. On came this song, with a girl singing about someone call ‘Denee’ to a great pop tune with some brilliant drumming which I was soon to find out was by the great Clem Burke. Even through the medium wave static, I could hear what I thought was French being sung – a language I had done at ‘O-level’ but had dropped like a stone when I went on to struggle through my Highers. Wow – I thought, as I chewed my cereal – that’s cool. Apparently, many others thought the same as the single went to No2 and many a teenage boy’s pulse was set to race by Debbie Harry’s appearances on TOTP. Harry apparently improvised the French lyric as she was recording the tune.

Fun fact – the song was originally a hit for Randy & The Rainbows in 1963 when it was titled with the feminine spelling Denise and made No10 in the US charts. Performed in a doo-wop style, it had been written by band member Neil Levenson and was inspired by his childhood friend, a girl called Denise Lefrak. Which presumably inspired Harry to reach for her schoolgirl French…

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Suicide – Cheree (1978)

“Cheree, Cheree”

Now I am starting to stretch things a bit here as the only French in this track comes in the chorus.

Suicide were a cult American electronic duo composed of vocalist Alan Vega and instrumentalist Martin Rev, who began performing in 1970. Seen as pioneers of minimalist electronica using early synthesizers and primitive drum machines, they gathered a reputation for confrontational performances in the New York art-rock scene. Their eponymous debut album was released in 1977 and became a highly influential touchstone for post-punk music.

This was presumably how they joined the bill of The Clash’s ‘Out On Parole’ UK tour in the summer of 1978 which also included the recently renamed Coventry Automatics – Jerry Dammers preferred the name The Specials.

Suicide were a difficult listen for those who had come to worship at the Strummer/Jones/Simonon altar and, with the band’s famous crowd-baiting coming from the stage in their New York accents, it made for a hostile atmosphere. For some reason, the crowd I was in at the Glasgow Apollo on 4 July 1978 was even angrier than most on the tour. Vega describes fearing for his life that night and while I saw a number of missiles launched at the stage, I never saw the axe he claims had whistled inches past his head. Rock’n’roll folklore, I think.

Cheree Cheree was on the setlist that night so you can now judge for yourselves what tool of terror you might have chucked in their direction. I rather liked them.

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Bon Voyage – Sparks (1974)

“Bon Voyage”

Another bit of a cheat as once again the only French is in the title – but it allows me to pick a track from the great 1974 Sparks LP Propaganda. Released in November, this was the band’s second LP that year with Kimomo My House appearing in May. They had exploded onto the UK music scene with the legendary TOTP performance of the single This Town Isn’t Big Enough and they quickly became one of the bands of the year. So it seems fitting that they stuck out two brilliant LPs in those 12 months, both produced by Muff Winwood for Island Records.

Kimono is often seen as their meisterwerk but my personal 1974 preference is for Propaganda as I think the writing is stronger across all the tracks, not just the singles. Never Turn Your Back On Mother Earth was a great single and Don’t Leave Me At Home With Her should have been an even better single but somehow it got overlooked. Ron Mael’s ear for a hook melody and the quirky, witty subject matter in his lyrics allowed Russell’s voice to soar through the songs.

Bon Voyage is set around the loading of Noah’s Ark from the point of view of someone (or some animal) who hasn’t made the cut for two of each species to get on board as the rain clouds form “on a gospel sky”. The imagery of tears falling on the sand while they wish their lucky friends ‘bon voyage’, secretly hoping they could sneak on board rather than stay and face extinction, is actually quite touching in the context of what sounds like an upbeat pop song. Maybe Ron was musically projecting forward to the brave new world at the top of Mount Ararat – who knows?

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Last Word

This first digital nomad blog was written during stops in Epernay (to sample some champagne), Ounans (to sit in the sun by the river Loue), Saillans (more sun, a dip in the river and the Euro semi-finals in the campsite bar) and finally at the Verdon Gorge having traveled through the wonderous sccenery of the Lavender Fields that day. I thought I’d use Last Word to offer up a ‘picture of the week’ to prove I’m actually doing this and not just sat at home in the rain, kidding on. So here is a shot of some vineyards taken from the top of the limestone escarpment of Chateau-Challon in the Jura region of SE France.

Get all tracks on the WIS Master Playlist below.

WeekInSoundMaster

AR