Monday, July 14, 2008

Vive La France!


As today is Bastille Day, I thought that I would put together a compilation of songs in French (by artists of several nationalities). This task proved more arduous than I initially anticipated, as I simply did not realise quite how many French songs I had in my music library! Therefore, the difficulty came not in finding suitable tracks, but in whittling down their sheer volume! I decided to enforce a 'female singers only' rule (oh, how I love those French ladies!), in order to cut the numbers down a little and make the task more manageable, but still had to make some tough calls about what to include and what to omit.

I toyed with writing my post introduction in French, but decided that it has been so long that it would be vaguely understandable at best...bog all chance of grammatically correct, so I decided that should be a 'nay'!

I think the list below is a good one, with some super songs and a nice cross-section of different styles and voices, old and new. See what you think:

1. Je Danse Donc Je Suis - Brigitte Bardot

2. M'envoyer des Fleurs - Sandrine Kiberlain

3. La Derniere Minute - Carla Bruni

4. Comment Te Dire Adieu - Francoise Hardy

5. Ne Me Quitte Pas - Bic Runga *

6. Si Tu Dois Partir - Fairport Convention

7. Tout Doucement - Feist

8. L'un Part L'autre Reste - Charlotte Gainsbourg

9. Ma Premiere Cigarette - Gillian Hills

10. La Foule - Edith Piaf

11. Little Boxes (Petite Boites) - Kate and Anna McGarrigle (more Little Boxes)

12. Salamandre - Sarah Harmer

13. Mile Tendresses - Tift Merritt (more Tift Merritt)

14. La Chanson d'un Fille de Quinze Ans - Ann Savoy and Linda Ronstadt *

15. Pa Janvier, Laisse Moi M'en Aller - Patty Griffin *

16. Bisonours - CocoRosie

17. Lo Boob Oscillator - Stereolab

18. Mal de Mer - Rupa and the April Fishes

19. Judas Mon Coeur - Belly (more Belly)

20. Paris S'enflamme - Ladyhawke

Plus a bonus 'mystery' track!

Etoile

I found this track whilst perusing my iTunes; it had no tags other than the song name, and I have no idea who sings it! I like it, and if anyone out there is able to identify it, you get serious brownie points!

Or why not have the lot as a zip file? (Sadly not in order, so you may have to create a playlist in your digital media player to hear them as I intended)

* Thanks to Boyhowdy over at Cover Lay Down for these contributions.

8 comments:

boyhowdy said...

A great, wonderfully broad set of tunes, including some of my favorites (not just the ones I sent along, but the Feist, Fairport's Dylan cover, Tift Merrit, Stereolab, Belly, and the Little Boxes cover are also awesomely good.)

Nice work as always, D. And thanks for the linkback.

Anonymous said...

Pretty sure the mystery track is "Etoile" by Liliput (aka Kleenex), disc 2, track 19, of the Liliput album on Kill Rock Stars, verified by listening to the samples on eMusic and iTMS.

Divinyl said...

Yo yo yo BH!

Thank you muchly for the assistance :o) I should credit you for the Feist really, as well...I took it from your e-mail, although I already had it, rather than messing with m4as and such! Lol.

I bloody love Belly! They didn't get as popular as they deserved (at least certainly not in the UK). And this French cover of their own song is lovely, isn't it?

Divinyl said...

Anon...by golly you are right!!

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

And that makes perfect sense...as downloaded from the KRS website! (Tsk, they should tag their mp3s properly...but I suppose I can't complain too much when they are free!).

Many many brownie points heading your way through the ether! :o)

Unknown said...

My o' Well o' Boy!
You, once again, leave me in awe, Divinyl! The topics you choose, and the songs you pick to build the post, are never less than astounding.
I'm taking a little break from SMM, as I've had a lot on my plate these past couple of weeks, so I haven't been seeing what you're up to over there, but am sure happy I stopped by here today. Almost as happy as that is a run-on sentence!

Anyhow, kudos to you, my friend... "Not a Blog"? I don't think so!

Divinyl said...

Aw shucks, thanks Matt...you are sweet :o) Some nice songs there, eh? I'm all smiley with that little bit of praise!

I've been taking a wee break from SMM since the 50 States theme (which I must finish up over here!) too, so must get back into the swing of things!

And you're right...it kind of is a blog, isn't it? I had a philosophical e-mail debate, related to Rene Magritte and the physicality of computer screens etc., in French with someone that sent me some music along once! That was fun, but I'm not sure the world at large is ready for my pidgeon French...has been so long since I wrote it that, although the vocab is still there, the grammatical rules are definitely not!

Cheers for commenting duck :o) Over 550 visitors yesterday...and 3 of you bothered!! Lol.

boyhowdy said...

3 comments from 550 visitors? That's not bad, actually -- above average, in fact, for most non-dialogic blogs of any stripe, including music blogs.

ZenDenizen said...

But what about little Jordy? haha