We sing in pharmacies

The Urgo gift affair invites us to evoke the image that pharmacists have in popular culture.

If we have talked about the profession of pharmacist in recent weeks, it was not because all ladies fall in love with their pharmacist, as in this song by Jean Sablon in 1933.

We are obviously asking questions with the affair of illegal gifts offered by the company Urgo to thousands of French pharmacists – a case in which the former Minister of Health, Agnès Firmin Le Bodo, is cited.

And this reminds us that, for generations, our popular culture has liked to look in pharmacists’ cash drawers. And this is why some classic sketches feature the drug trade.

In the second episode of These songs that make the news, broadcast this weekend, you hear excerpts from:

Jean Sablon, Pretty pharmacist, 1933

Sylvie Joly, The Little Pharmacist, 1980

Bernard Lavilliers, The pharmacist, 1972

Jacques Brel, Rosa, 1962

Ginette Garcin, Cresoxipropanediol capsule, 1966

Richard Anthony, Typhoon Syrup, 1969

Bikini Machine, The English Pharmacy, 2006

Jul, Pharmacy, 2020

Charles Trenet, In pharmacies, 1951

Anne Cordy, In pharmacies, 1956

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And you can also find the podcast on this link 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.