It’s a song that resembles us. “Les Champs-Élysées” or Paris in French in the lyrics

“Les Champs-Élysées” was not composed as a song glorifying Paris: it is Pierre Delanoë’s adaptation, for Joe Dassin, of a song by an English group evoking an avenue in London. But it has become the symbol of the City of Light all over the world.

In partnership with the exhibition It’s a song that resembles us – Worldwide hits of French-language popular music At the Cité internationale de la langue française in Villers-Cotterêts, these chronicles look in detail at each of the stories presented there.

You don’t have to be French and have lived through the late 1960s for The Champs-Élysées causes a little pang in the heart and also perhaps a little annoyance, when we know that this song has been appropriated throughout the world to sing and celebrate Paris, just as a French cancan music symbolized Paris for generations in the 1950s. What is ironic about the most famous song in the repertoire of Joe Dassin, its creator, is that originally, The Champs-Élysées is not a French song about Paris.

Released a year earlier, in 1968, Waterloo Road is a song by Jason Crest, a band from Tonbridge, a small town in Kent, about fifty kilometers from London. This song, which has the exact same melody, was not a success, like the four other 45s by Jason Crest. But this one caught the ear of the artistic director of Joe Dassin’s record company. When the lyricist Pierre Delanoë asked why the song was named after the historic defeat of Emperor Napoleon I, he was told that Waterloo Road is an avenue in London a bit like the Champs-Élysées. So the adaptation of the text will be simple…

In this episode of This song reminds me of usyou hear excerpts from:

Joe Dassin, The Champs-Élysées, 1969

Jason Crest, Waterloo Road, 1969

Joe Dassin, The Champs-Élysées, 1969

Joe Dassin, The Champs-Élysées (German version), 1970

Joe Dassin, The Champs-Élysées (Italian version), 1970

Joe Dassin, The Champs-Élysées (Japanese version), 1970

Joe Dassin, The Champs-Élysées (English version), 1969

Pomplamoose, The Champs-Élysées, 2020

Zaz, The Champs-Élysées, 2014

Joe Dassin, The Champs-Élysées, 1969

You can also extend this column with the book This song reminds me of us published by Heritage Publishing.

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