I Will Take As Many Words As I Want To Write This Story
I Love Francoise Hardy!!!---
Ok--on Ep I formed the group "i Love Francoise Hardy". I may have been the only one to post to it. But I posted a lot to it. The music I posted of hers on there got quite a few replies. Sadly this place never imported it, as they did a few other of my groups.
So I am taking it upon myself to post some of her music , here, in this group, which is one I CREATED! i had pleaded with SW admin time and again to bring it over and a few others that were dear to me. But that plea fell on deaf ears. Now I am waiting for my material to be imported. But that could be 2020.
I could say so much about Francoise- and her music. I could say how her music is sad, reflective, meaningful, pensive and slightly wistful of hope. But avid listeners already know that. To those who are not that kind of listener- yo are in foe a treat. Just give yourself a chance.
I could talk about how she is a French national Icon. And a living legend. Or how she has recorded in 5 decades- cultivating many styles and forms of music. From Jazz to Folk and Ye-ye to Easy Listening.
Or how she has been , and remains, an inspiration to many.
But I will not do that.
Not now. Not in this post.
In this post I want to share one of my fave songs of hers. An early song she did in 1962 and remains as sweet and fresh as it was then. Most of her songs of this time period revolved around love. Having none, losing it, wanting it, and the yearning for a perfect love. In a lot of way- her much of this time mirrors a lot of what we want today. And yearn for.
This song is about that yearning. And wanting. With a bit of a broken heart mixed in.
Enjoy
(as a side note- many will recognize a young Jimi Hendrix accompanying her in a some of her music.)
You are right about how fresh this sounds. When one considers what a lot of pop sounded like back then, it is remarkable for the simplicity of its approach. No worries about dated pop cliches in this one because they weren't there to start with! And I love the words on this one, the wistfulness of it all, the wondering if it was all just a dream after all. It's so touching - and there's another thing - you could take dictation from her singing, it's so sweet and clear.
@supersnipe It was pre Beatles. Pre British invasion. Both so much music form France and England, pre that invasion was great. Pet Clark has a lot of great French songs. But like Sylvie Vartan- who eventually married Johnny Holladay, the French Elvis, Pet copied a lot of US hots into the French language. I liked Sylvie, but the originality of Francoise and even France Gall was more refreshing. it tok her until `1968 to copy a US song and that was Ricky Nelson's "Lonesome Town" which she did in English and French. "Suzanne" shortly followed.
There was an innocence to these songs. A longing and a yearning. A wanting to be desired and a wish to have one to desire. Perhaps to be an object of our affection. That no longer exists. Music now is too "in your face".
@Elandra77 I like Pet Clark. As with a lot of the young female singers of the period, she was expected to sing bubblegum like 'Alone'(1957), a fact which I believe contributed to her leaving the UK. A year or so ago she gave an account on BBC radio of how she came to do the song 'Downtown'. Tony Hatch visited her in Paris, ran a few songs past her that she wasn't keen on, and so he finally told her his idea for a song that he had in mind. It wasn't very far along in its gestation at that stage; he had the idea of the basic structure, but no lyrics. She told him 'if you can put a decent lyric to it, I'll do it'. And so she did.
There was a song she did quite early on in her career which was more enjoyable than most of her output at the time, and that was 'With All My Heart' (also '57). It has a bright, breezy Continental feel to it - no wonder, its origins were Italian. I've got a copy - not a 45rpm but one of those 'unbreakable' 78's. I don't know any of her output in French, funnily enough.
