What would the summer holidays be without summer hits, those songs that loop on the radio, that we sing at the top of our lungs and that make us dance until the end of the night? Over the next few weeks, “Le Devoir» drags you on a musical and temporal journey to (re)discover these “hits» that marked our summers.
And if we tell you The mosquito ? No, not the nuisance par excellence of our summers, the achalants around the chalet; the song. The earworm with wings and a stinger. You say ? Joe Dassin, go! It’s a safe bet that at this very moment, you’ll be bizzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzy with rhymes in “ique”: “I’m taking a nap, mosquito / Stop your music a little / Don’t be unsympathetic / Don’t sting me! »
Hit of the summer of 1973 in our still very popular AM radios (CJMS 1280, CJRP 1060 and company), The mosquito has since returned, faithful irritant reminding us from the first real heat of the season, that they are about to hatch, the bastards, the bloodthirsty, the freeloaders of which we will be the tartar of the farce. And if the song was born frozen in December 1972, it is quite naturally in the pretty May afterwards that The mosquito invaded the charts.
After The Daltons (“tagada tagada”) and The chocolate bun (“la, la la laaaaa”), among other early successes of the nice son of Jules Dassin the filmmaker, The mosquito was the perfect tube: an intravenous injection. Repetitive line (“No Me Moleste Mosquito”), comical music, almost a nursery rhyme: the words of the brilliant Claude Lemesle, with the help of Richelle Dassin, Joe’s sister, easily come to mind. “There are countries full of voluptuousness / For a quality mosquito / In St-Tropez, in Honolulu / Everyone is fat, everyone is naked. »
Joe Dassin sings The Doors
What a find! Find found elsewhere, in this case. Hard, when you grew up with Joe until Indian Summer, to think that No Me Moleste Mosquito is a creation of the group The Doors. But if. The Doors from the Full Circle album, the second after Jim Morrison’s fatal Parisian bath, but the Doors nonetheless. It’s a little tune by guitarist Robbie Krieger (to whom we owe Light My Fire, incidentally). In a 2015 issue of the journal Uncut, he says: “I was on vacation in Mexico, and a mariachi trio was playing a whole bunch of songs, and there was talk of a ‘mosquito’ in one of them. It inspired me. »
You have to listen to the original version by The Doors to admit that it belongs to them. Imagine a bad acid trip in a hemoglobin-thirsty swarm. There are three lines of text altogether (the title, “Why don’t you go home” and “Just let me eat my burrito”) that Krieger sleepily mumbles ad nauseam. The formidable instrumental bridge, very Doors, a kind of bossa prog-rock, is all in syncope: John Densmore, on drums, was as inventive as he had been behind the late Jimbo. The trio was still very tight-knit. Note the very effective participation of Leland Sklar on bass.
Instrumental sequence? Eh yes. Filled with mosquitoes for Dassin. This is where it piques curiosity, where the “novelty item” becomes a song. Fortiche Lemesle and sister Dassin offer ten additional lines. Best. “Mosquito, old man, you see too small / You have wings, go see the country / I have a boss bigger than me / Go ahead with confidence, I’m the one who sent you. »
A recurring subject… and from Quebec
This is obviously not the only song with spicy rhymes in the French-speaking repertoire, mosquitoes having a mania for breeding. In furious quantity.
As early as 1930, the extraordinary Mary Travers, then called Mme Ed. Bolduc on posters and sheet music, but La Bolduc had already laid Mosquitoesin very breakable 78 rpm on Starr label, with The R-100 on the other side. Truculence cubed: “I went for a walk in the countryside for tea / I tell you, I tore it off, the mosquitoes ate everything up on me / When they saw me arriving, they gave me a beautiful way / Came to meet me, it was like a procession”: note the religious connotation.
In 1991, a trad-rock group devoted itself to the fabulous canon of La Bolduc. Their name ? The Mosquitoes. Where was already hopping a hell of a bug: the very young Mara Tremblay.
Mosquitoes, mosquitoes, cursed bugs. In 1968, precisely, there was at number one of the Palmarès Méritas a funny little song entitled The Bugs, signed and sung by Karo (Valley). We were in full yé-yé vogue: she is one of the few to stay away from adaptations of American, British or French hits from France, she combined the verve of La Bolduc and an unstoppable garage pop look. Not sectarian, inclusive before the letter, the song listed all the species of bugs from our region, and solved the problem quickly: “Fortunately there is winter / To freeze the bugs / Gna gna gnagna gna. »
The mosquito became a worldwide success for Joe Dassin, who served it in several languages. nasty big hit in Quebec, the piece is always good to transplant. Stefie Shock had the honor of singing it on the opening of the tribute album Salut Joe! (2006).
Until recently, it was Fanny Bloom who went there with her version. It was at the beginning of 2020. Coinciding inadvertently (or opportunely, it depends) with the appearance, then the dazzling outbreak of a certain disease called COVID-19. No Me Moleste Covido? It’s less jojo than in the summer of Joe.