“She was shivering under her ocelot coat” sings Ricet Barrier to us in 1969. And today we hardly see an ocelot coat, that sort of jaguar from South America. We won’t see any more in She, in any case. The women’s weekly announced it this week – you heard it on France Info. And, culturally, this confirms the end of a certain imagination, and the difficulty of understanding certain songs, without making a little historical effort …
In the first episode of These songs that make the news this weekend, you hear excerpts from:
Ricet Barrier, Rendezvous (Stanislas), 1967
Georges Brassens, Unfair competition, 1966
Yves Montand, The Marie Vison, 1956
Serge Gainsbourg, Maxim’s, 1963
Zizi Jeanmaire, Vamp and vampire, 1977
Thomas Fersen, Jeans, 2013
Léo Ferré, Never again, 1962
Léo Ferré, And basta !, 1973
Léo Ferré, Sad Lovers, 1974
Léo Ferré, The Vendetta, 1982
Francoise Hardy, Silk and furs, 2012
You can also follow the news of this column on Twitter.
Remember: during the summer of 2019, La Playlist de Françoise Hardy was a journey through the musical baggage of an author, composer and performer considered to be the arbiter of the elegance of pop in France.
In July and August 2017, we spent Un été en Souchon, during which Alain Souchon guided us on a tasty walk through a lifetime of love for song.
All summer 2016, in the company of Vincent Delerm, we wandered around in La Playlist amoureuse de la chanson, truant exploration of popular heritage. You can also extend the delicacies of this summer column with the French song lover dictionary, co-published by Plon and franceinfo.