Jacques Lanzmann 1927 - 2006
Writer and songsmith Jacques Lanzmann died on Wednesday in Paris. The silent partner to the persona of Jacques Dutronc, Lanzmann was responsible for the lyrics to all of Dutronc’s songs from the 60s including “Et moi, et moi, et moi,” “Le cactus,” and “Il est 5 heure Paris s’éveille.” Songs that are deeply ingrained in the French psyche. The kids may not know who sang or wrote “Le cactus” but they sure know the words.
Lanzmann was working as an editor for Daniel Filipacchi, the owner of Salut les copains! magazine, on his French version of Playboy called Lui. Filipacchi suggested to Vogue Records Artistic Director Jacques Wolfsohn (always on the look-out for that new, potential hit tune) that perhaps Lanzmann could write some songs for the label. Dutronc was Wolfsohn’s assistant at the time. The idea was to put some songs together for a new, unknown pop star. Dutronc put a few demos together from Lanzmann’s lyrics and Wolfsohn liked them so much he decided to release them with Dutronc as the singer. French pop history was made!
Though most of us know him as the writer of witty lyrics he also wrote dozens of novels. Being born in the 20s he was significantly older than the baby boom generation he was writing songs for. As such, his lyrics are cynical and parody many of the attitudes of the 60s generation. One of my favorites, “Mini, mini, mini”, has the singer lamenting the diminishing culture around him - mini-skirts, mini-mok (a small jeep/car), Minnie Mouse and the minister. Just in that example I think you can get a sense of the word play that made him so brilliant. It doesn’t always translat, but in this case it works well.
One thing that sets Dutronc apart from the yé-yé breatheren is the biting lyrics that mocked the youth culture of the time. It’s definitely worth the effort to have someone who speaks better French than you to go over the songs, the puns and jeu de mot (”word play”) are phenominal.
Make no mistake, Jacques Dutronc was definitely made-up of two Jacques.
Au revoir Mssr. Lanzmann
The Da Vinci Côte
25 May 2006,
Filed under:
CinemaI don’t know what people are all talking about.
First, the movie is just as good, if not better than the book.
Second, it’s a popcorn movie. It’s a good popcorn movie.
Third, it’s mostly set in Paris and has a beautiful French woman in it.
Fourth, as a popcorn movie, it celebrates humanity and particularly women AND women being the gateway to ecstasy through sex. It reveals the oppression of women and their massacre for centuries at the hands of “Christians.” And a beautiful French woman is the descendent of Jesus.
I think that last bit is really what has got all youse panties in a bunch.
Basically it is saying “The French rule! All they want is sex.”
As you can see the implications of this film are far deeper, far more controversial than some schmere of the of the Catholic church.
It’s a film about the importance of the French/American alliance. You can’t trust the Red Coats - they’re gentlemen and they’ll shoot you. The Italians? Puh-lease. No, it is the Frenchies who are our sisteren.
Let the fornicatin’ begin!
P.S.
The one complaint I would have would be the French police detective, obviously very conservative because of his hatred for modern architecture and, of course, his allegience to Opus Dei, would not be listening to Serge Gainsbourg. A “No Prize” for the first person to tell me what Gainsbourg song they are listening to.
Alone
Sorry I have been away!
Françoise Hardy is one of my favorite artitsts. Way back when, in the early days of the internet, I had a website dedicated to her. I do believe it was the first Françoise Hardy site on the net, though Warren Gilbert over at All Over The World (a great site) disputes that claim.
Regardless, Françoise was the first female Frenchie that I got into. I was working at KALX 90.7 FM, in Berkeley, CA and we had a bunch of her American releases in the library. (The 4-Corners and Reprise records). Remember the days when you could go into a used record store and actually find a Françoise Hardy record for less than ten bucks?! Sadly those days are gone. One of the records that I found in such a situation is one of my favorites of hers - Alone.
Released in England as One-Nine-Seven-Zero, this 1970 album includes a few songs from Soleil which featured Micky Jones and Tommy Brown (Brits who worked with Johnny Hallyday and Jones went on to form the band Foreigner). It’s an Original Productions Asparagus Recording which was Françoise’s production company she formed when she broke from Vogue, as such, the music is much more to her liking.
The chain HMV in England reissued this stuff as The Françoise Hardy Collection but it is out of print. I have heard of German and Japanese CDs but haven’t been able to track them down. These are from my record.
Here are three tracks:
Suzanne (Leonard Cohen)
Song of Winter (Micky Jones - Tommy Brown)
In the Sky (Françoise Hardy - Pierre Tubbs
La brune et moi
I just now put up this little site and a tiny trailer of the French punk rock movie that I am distributing. It is a very rare film from 1979 and features all sorts of bands that you never heard of. Check it out:
http://www.bardotagogo.com/brune
It’s only in Quicktime right now. More formats to follow as soon as I figure it out. Contact me if you are interested in screening it in your town!
Je suis content, finally.
This is one of my favorite Dutronc tunes released in 1968. Great tune and from what I understand about the lyrics, great lyrics. The chorus goes something like “I am happy that it hasn’t happened to me yet” while he talks about having 12 kids and loosing ones teeth. Which on a quick observation and off the cuff would seem to epitomize the youth revolution.
But the reason that I am posting this is really because this version comes directly from the EP. It’s different than the one on my Dutronc CD box set. Listen in the background to the fuzz guitar grinding away incessantly. You don’t hear it that prominantly on the CD versions. Now I haven’t heard the Cactus collection, and Christian Eudeline told me that they went back and listened to the original EPs when they remastered it, so hopefully the version on that comp will correct the wrong. Or hopefully I will have the scoop.
Je suis content - Jacno Dutronc
Clothilde
Blow-Up Doll has a Clothilde MP3 for y’all. I volunteered to post some album art. So voila.
Here are the liner notes from Swinging Mademoiselle Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 on Clothilde:
Vol 1.
Here comes, without a doubt, my favorite French Female singer of the Swinging 60s! Of course, lets not forget the producer, Mr. Germinal Tenas. Germinal worked with Antoine et les Problemes and he later formed his own band, Chorus Reverendus. He enjoyed mixing traditional pop sounds with weird instruments like French Horn (check out “La queue du chat” on “Ills sont fous ces Gaulois” vol 2.) The result was a strange and splendid baroque pop and every one of the eight song Clothilde and Germinal did together are musts! Clothilde used to say that she was more into painting than music. I’m so frustrated she only had those 2 EPs. I want some more!
Vol 2.
Sasha could not do another volume without including another song from his fave babe. This is another example of Germinal Tenas’ genius when it comes to studio work. He’s the one who brought Clothilde in front of the microphones, because he thought she was the ideal performer for the material he had in mind. She was 19 & more interested in drawing than singing. She was specially scared by the idea of having to sing in front of an audience. We don’t know if it’s true but we heard that she killed herself in the early 709s after her husband left the family home? Sad indeed.
Another site mentioned that Germinal Tenas was actually film producer Christian Fechner but that information is wrong. Even though her music is post 1966, people call her ye-ye and if you use that as a general term, so be it. But Clothilde goes beyond the music of Sheila or Sylvie.
These covers are at 1/3 their size down below so download them to get the full size.
Plastic Bertrand
I was going to write a bit on P.B. but found two sites that have already handled the task and includes downloads to other versions of the song.
This site has a good quote from Joe Strummer that I can going to print and put on my wall:
http://www.david.gibbs.co.uk/plastic/bertrand.htm
I don’t like saying, “You’re a punk and you’re not.”
There was a record out there called “Ca Plane pour Moi” by Plastic Bertrand, right? And I guarantee you if I had to play it for you right now you’d go, “Right! That is rockin!”
Now, if you were to say to any sort of purist punk, “This is a good punk record,” they’d get completely enraged. But Plastic Bertrand, whoever he was, compressed into that three minutes a bloody good record that will get any comatose person toe-tapping, you know what I mean?
By purist rules, it’s not allowed to even mention Plastic Bertrand. Yet, this record was probably a lot better than a lot of so-called punk records.
Joe Strummer, The Clash
There are some downloads to some of the other cuts on the Plastic Bertrand album. And this site:
http://www.strangereaction.com/archives/2005/08/24/ca-plane-pour-moi/
has several different versions of the songs and some clues to other ones in the comments section.
Here is another Belgian version by electronic pioneers Telex.
Telex - Ca plane pour moi
Trista Motiv
Well I left my L’encyclopedie de rock francais in Paris so I can’t look-up this band. I know nothing about them except that the lead man is called Yves Charlot and the girl singer is Sylvie and I believe they are the two most front people on the cover. The other musicians are Olivier, Francois and Jean-Philippe. Released in 1984 on Pierre Barouh’s Saravah label this is a departure from the “maison du disques”’s usual world music faire.
It’s good synth pop, coming at the end of the silver age of French pop - 1978-1982 (this one falls out of that strict category by two years, so sue me.)
Track A - Transparent - Trista Motiv
Danyel Gerard
Everyone knows Johnny Hallyday as the teen idol of French Pop. And a lot of you may also know what is considered to be the first Rock ‘n’ Roll song - “Rock ‘n’ Roll Mops.” But this song was not sung by teenagers and it was a parody as well. The title is actually a pun (a No-Prize to anyone who knows what the pun is.) The line-up was as follows - Vocals: Henry Cording (pun - Hen –recording, aka Henri Salvador), Music: Big Mike (Michel Legrand), Lyrics: Vernon Sullivan (Boris Vian! — note: merci Thibaut!). Richard Anthony can also be credited with the earliest Rock ‘n’ Roll but he was in his 20s when he started performing.
The first true teenage release was by Danyel Gerard, who released “D’ou viens-tu Billie Boy?” (Where Do You Come From Billie Boy) in 1958, lyrics based on lyrics by Boris Vian! It’s not a great rock ‘n’ roll tune and anyone who wants to argue that it is not rock ‘n’ roll I am more than happy to have that conversation/debate with you. But first you have to tell me how Elvis’ “Blue Christmas” is rock ‘n’ roll. In 1959, after on other EP, Gerard went off to his military service and when he returned he had some Black Socks, Savage Cats and Johnny Hallyday to contend with. He continued to record songs and write for the likes of Johnny, Sylvie, and others.
The fabulous Jean Bouchety is the orchestrator on the “Billie Boy” and the following EP. I have never seen the EP, only a picture and the thing that confuses me is that the first song listed on the cover is not “B.B.” but “When.” However, track listings on covers are never good things to go by. The first two EPs were on Chez Barclay and when he returned from service he was on Polydor. Later EPs were on disc A-Z (ah zed) the label of Lucien Morisse husband of Dalida (who Gerard wrote for) and head of Europe 1. As you can see, the French music industry is rather incestuous.
In the early 70s he had a hit with “Butterfly” but most of us know his whacked-out psychedelic funk tune “Sexologie” from that album because of its appearance on several compilations.
Here is “Billy Boy” and an un-re-released cut from his “America” EP (I am using “America” in my movie and thus didn’t include it.), a cover of “Sugar Shack” with the bizarre title of “Sugar Shake” which I find superior to the original. The French can get away with the cutesy thing sometims. On this EP he is accompanied by real “kids”, as opposed to old jazz musicians, Les Champions!
D’ou viens-tu Billie Boy? (slow)
Sugar Shake (surf- hully gully)
