French festive corn: (2) from the tropics to the Champs-Élysées
December 26, 2024
FOR PART ONE VISIT THIS LINK
Colin Randall writes: One New Year’s Eve in provincial France, there were two parties to attend. I was driving so not in the best of moods as the night began.
We left the first celebration - le réveillon - with a sense of relief. My French sister-in-law and her husband had blamelessly booked a table for three couples. There was music. But I accepted long ago that either they had no idea there’d be infantile games, hideous pop and even the Birdie Song, or that they assumed everyone would enjoy it anyway.
And in France they do.
IAs we saw in the first, Christmas Day instalment of Festive French Corn, this is a nation that doesn’t take itself too seriously, that willingly lets its hair down and enjoys the least cerebral of fun.
On to our second réveillon. After struggling through thick fog while taking care to avoid black ice, we arrived chez Marie-Paule, my wife’s friend from school and, as I always thought, pretty cool.
She and her husband Christian greeted us warmly. I said how relieved we were to have escaped the wretched stuff we’d endured earlier. "But we’ve been doing all of that, too!" exclaimed Marie-Paule.
Heard at each of those parties whether you like it or not was the Birdie Song. I’ve already inflicted that 0n you in part one.
Also played twice that night in our presence, and doubtless everywhere else around France, was Sous Les Sunlights des Tropiques, which - shamelessly - I have always found irresistible, one of the few pieces of variété française that even I am prepared to get up and dance to.
It's all about the joys of holidays in exotic locations with Brazil, the Pacific ocean and somewhere undefined "between Cuba and Manila" all mentioned. From my in-car playlist of cheesy French songs, this is by far the most played. And the imagery conjured by its writer Gilbert Montagné is all the more praiseworthy because he has been blind since shortly after birth.
From tropical sunshine to seasonally cold Paris and specifically the Champs-Élysées on New Year's Eve - the forecast is for 2 degrees around midnight, "chilly but not freezing... depends on what you are used to", according to the first online reference I found.
The Champs-Élysées is acclaimed by the French as the world's most beautiful avenue. It is certainly an impressive one, though there are elements of seediness and, at the less brightly illuminated end towards the Place de la Concorde, even a little menace. Walking there some years ago, I was confronted by a group of four young voyous who demanded my mobile phone; a few choice profanities in English unexpectedly saw them off.
Joe Dassin's song is another staple of the French party diet. It extols the virtues of the avenue, insisting there is everything you could ever want there at midday or midnight, in sunshine or rain. It's another cheery singalong and the version I choose has lryics you can practise basic French on.
But where, you're asking, is the folk?
Let's turn to the dependable Alan Stivell, 81 in the new year but an artist with a formidable history of promoting and popularising Breton music and especially his instrument, the Celtic harp.
His song, Tri Matolod (Breton for three sailors), has a chorus so catchy that all of France knows it and will happily include it in its party selections.
This two-part series has barely scratched at the surface of my own playlist of French corn, let alone the genre as a whole.
Christmas has passed. So with another réveillon to come next Tuesday night and into Wednesday morning, let Salut! Live simply wish all readers and all the fine artists we write about a really bonne année.
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