Good year for cool threads, 1966. The chap who looks like he needs a a week's sleep and a good go with the Optrex is Jacques Dutronc, and he's a megastar in the French-speaking world, apparently. He's been in films and he married toothsome (I've never known what that means, really - edible?) chanteuse Francoise Hardy in 1981.
For "Et Moi, et Moi" Dutronc seems to have borrowed a riff from the Solomon Burke classic, "Everybody Needs Somebody To Love", with which the Rolling Stones used to open their concerts:
In turn, Mungo Jerry anglicised "Et Moi, et Moi", and took the resulting record, "Alright, Alright, Alright", to No. 3 in the UK:
I've listened to some of Jacques' other platters, but the best I could come up with is this one, which sounds a bit like the much later "Jean Jeanie" (it starts out okay, but he rapidly runs out of ideas):
Anyway, I love "Et Moi, et Moi" - and I had a brief hunt for other French gems from the '60s, but couldn't find any. What I did find was this, from 1961:
Still, mustn't laugh - it's no worse than a lot of the crap we were producing at the time.
'Some say that, some say this, some say no and a some say yes.'
ReplyDeleteIn a very real sense: yes. Every true artist must go through a period of reflective, nay brutal analysis of the self in order to evolve creatively in Id and Ego. For some, the answer might be seen in terms of Janov's primal scream. Yeeeesss!,!!!! Or indeed, No!!!!! Both in a very loud voice.
Fair enough. But did Mummy ever say to Mungo ' Alright, Alright, Alright, Alright'. No she did not. Denial of parental approbation is at the heart of Mungo Jerry's seemingly moronic, yet in many ways, oddly inspirational lyric.
'I've been thinking 'bout my life, what's been wrong and a what's been right'.
What is Mungo saying here? We can only prod with a small stick at profundity's outer core. The chorus, consisting as it does of the words ' Do do do dee do do', offers both hope and uncertainty. Which will prevail? That is the question which Mungo at once raises and does not answer, leaving us to provide our own solution, as all great art must.
I'm looking forward to your analysis of Ray Dorset's lyrics to "Baby Jump", in particular:
Delete"I dream that she was Lady Chatterley
And I was the game keeper
I dream that I was Da Vinci
And she was the Mona Lisa
I dream that I was Humbert
And she was Lolita."
Hmm.
Hey, those Chaussettes Noires are le rock-a- most! OK, some would say three guitarists and no bass player is un peu contre monde. Purists might point to the fact that none of the three seems to jouer au solo en suite que le suspiciously big-haired for 1961 singer yells 'Rock'. Standing up drummers can 't buck up their feet either.
ReplyDeleteBut they pass the 'So bad, they're good' test avec les couleurs en avion. Un post magicque.
Merci bien!
DeleteIf Duane Eddy had the biggest "Twang" in the world the same could be said of Mungo's side-boards. The King of the Mutton Chops. To the back of the queue, Bradley Wiggins.
ReplyDeleteI do remember, when Ray Dorset's sideboards first appeared on the scene, feeling really jealous as mine, at that stage, were weedily Wiggins-like. I also wondered whether he woke up each morning with only his eyes and lips visible and had a live-in barber who spent the first two hours of every day clearing the undergrowth from the rest of his face before he was ready to appear on camera.
Delete