This has had earlier airings but fits the new Loft Vinyl series as snugly as the perfect glove. I am featuring tracks from old LPs released from lengthy exile in the loft, my elder daughter having bought me a turntable for Christmas. On getting home and setting it up, I gave my new toy an appropriate baptism, playing a song that hooked me as a spotty teenager and is found on one of the first two (vinyl) albums my wife bought me.
She is French and so, unmistakably, is the singer, Francoise Hardy. But read on: the singer loathes the song. How do I know? Because she told me so in an interview reproduced below ...
When I was the Paris-based correspondent of The Daily Telegraph, I interviewed Françoise Hardy, whose 1962 single, Tous Les Garçons et Les Filles, was a smash hit in France (15 weeks at No 1 in four separate runs between late October 1962 and mid-April 1963). I was among the adoring young men who helped it to the lofty heights of No 36 in the UK. But it is fair to say the song brought her international fame that belied its modest British chart achievements.
In that interview (from 2005 and reproduced below), Hardy told me in emphatic terms what she thought of the song. If I had been decades younger, her judgement on it would have broken my heart. But whenever I have mentioned it since, my readers have tended to agree with her. I still love it ...
The young Françoise. Image: Joost Evers/Anefo
Never a fan of her music, early or late. That hasn't changed.
Posted by: Bill Taylor | April 21, 2021 at 03:23 PM
French lessons became a lot more interesting when the teacher played Tous les garçons et les filles.
Posted by: Paul Devine | April 21, 2021 at 04:02 PM
Francoise Hardy has never realised how important her Disque Vogue recordings were between 1962 - 1972. Every song was fresh and original and absolutely haunting and charming.
I was an undergraduate at Lancaster in 1980 and was luck to find a copy of the Marble Arch Francoise Hardy Sings About Love on Morecambe Market one Sat. morning. The man who sold it to me said categorically that I would really like the album and he was 100% right - on hearing the album I was hooked. The next album I quickly acquired was the Pye 1974 compilation Golden Hour of Francoise Hardy - 23 tracks which just illuminated my life. I think her musical legacy - c,est tres important - c,est magnifique!
Philip Hugh Price
Posted by: Philip Hugh Price | September 11, 2021 at 11:58 PM
Perhaps the love for her music is sheer nostalgia, but on listening again, the breathiness and some sadness projected through her perfect diction and beautiful French, is still magnetic.
And maybe one has to be both a lover of her music and the French language for her songs to resonate. Still hooked after 60 years!!
Posted by: Michael McKelvey White | September 28, 2021 at 05:53 AM