We are in 1966 and Léo Ferré is ironic. It’s a sign of the times, moreover: the singer is an anarchist, openly revolted against the Fifth Republic of General de Gaulle and he despises culture in pocket format books, at least as much as the gold records of Mireille Mathieu and the UNR, the parliamentary formation of the Gaullist majority.
And today, it wouldn’t occur to anyone – and especially not an artist – to proclaim that pocket-format, and therefore cheap, books are not instruments of a shared culture in a democracy.
This week we celebrated the 70th anniversary of the Pocket book, the first major collection of pocket-format books in France. The simplicity with which one can store a book in a coat or jacket pocket has done a lot for reading in France. Including among subway workers in a famous song from 1958.
In These songs that make the news this Saturday, you hear excerpts from:
Leo Ferre, Hard Times (3rd version), 1966
Serge Gainsbourg, The Puncher of the Lilacs1958
Suzanne Gabriello, You haven’t read Kafka1966
Vincent Delarm, Fourth cover2004
Leo Ferre, Hard Times (3rd version), 1966
Vincent Delarm, The Modiano Kiss2004
Vincent Delarm, Fourth cover, 2004
Benabar, Handbag2003
Daniel Lavoie, I did not think2011
bazoo, Longship2014
Suzanne GabrielloYou haven’t read Kafka1966
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And you can also find on this link the podcast Behind our voices, with the writing and composition secrets of eight major artists of the French scene, Laurent Voulzy, Julien Clerc, Bénabar, Dominique A, Carla Bruni, Emily Loizeau, Juliette and Gaëtan Roussel.