COOL LID, NE PENSEZ-VOUS PAS?

I'm not a big yéyé nut, but I do like women singing in French; speaking in French is cool too. If you ever saw the old Addams Family TV show, I'm not quite Gomez, but close. So, checking out a song by Jacqueline Taieb, I'm sucked in first by the chord progression which sounds pretty similar to the Monkee's "(I'm Not Your) Stepping Stone". after a semi-spoken thing in French, in English she sings "Talking about my ge-ge-ge-generation". Now I'm listening. Later in the song she massacres the intro to "Tutti Frutti". Cool. The whole thing is a little harder sounding than a lot of yéyé. Intrigued by the two song references in English, I used an online translator thing to see what the lyrics were actually about. It's about her getting up in the morning, looking for her toothbrush, debating what sweater to wear and picking out some tunes. Rough translation highlight: "I want to put a record on to annoy neighbors who coo all day." Now I'm going totally Gomez.

As an adder there's the April March's "Chick Habit" that Quentin Tarantino used in Death Proof along with the original version of the song by France Gall "Laisse tomber les filles". Yé haw.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~

Listen:
Jacqueline Taieb - 7 Heures Du Mat mp3 at Internet Archive
France Gall - Laisse tomber les filles mp3 at Damnish
April March - Chick Habit mp3 at 10 Things I Hate About You

GET YOUR YÉ-YÉ OUT

Mel Torme is to blame. The Velvet Fog. He always seemed like some old crooner that was on every telethon ever. I never knew what all the fuss was about. Then, I heard "Comin' Home Baby", Dude did have cool in him. Who knew? That particular song is so smooth that it sounds like a parody. So, I run into Sylvie Vartan's cover of it, in French, and I'm going fully Gomez. I ended up on the Wiki page for yé-yé, and read about the ye-ye girls thing ("The singers were also sexy in a deliberately naïve way.") That lead to France Gall and her song "Les sucettes" ("Lollipops"), written by bird dog Serge Gainsbourg. She was eighteen at the time and had already been a successful singer for a couple years. The lyrics to the song were pure Gainsbourg, "Annie loves lollipops, aniseed lollipops, when the sweet liquid runs down Annie's throat, she is in paradise." If that's not suggestive enough, witness the lollipops in the video, there's no mistaking. It's dancing dildos.

It turns out that Gall also recorded "Laisse tomber les filles" a year or two before Gainsbourg got a hold of her. You might know it from the April March cover, rettitled "Chick Habit".

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~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~

Listen:
Mel Torme - Comin' Home Baby mp3 at A Gr8 Song
Sylvie Vartan - Ne t'en vas pas (Comin' home baby) mp3 at Discos y Mostrous
France Gall - Laisse tomber les filles mp3 at Damnish (?)
April March - Chick Habit mp3 at 10 Things I Hate About You
Video:
France Gall - Les sucettes at YouTube
Visit
Yé-yé entry at Wikipedia

WELCOME HATERS

Above: April March

I'm not a pop nut. One per mix, tops. Feels a little wussy a lot of the time. I'm talking classic pop, too. Spector, Bacharach, Abba, the Rasberries, the whole lot of them. It wears on my sourpuss side. But, when you're in a sourpuss mood, things are getting you down, the weight of the world is on your shoulders, and the fucking Yankees have just won the World Series, just remember, it's all just bullshit. All of it. Even your sacred serious music.

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These suckers sound like Fresca tastes:

The Bees - Chicken Payback mp3

April March - Chick Habit mp3

Persephone's Bees - Nice Day mp3