La chanson du jour - French songs 101

France Gall: Poupée de son (1965)

 Poupée de cire, poupée de son, (the exact title being only Poupée de son) written by Serge Gainsbourg wins the 1965 Eurovision competition (millions of copies sold).

Jane Birkin: Norma Jean Baker (1983)

 Gainsbourg again with Norma Jean Baker by Jane Birkin, mixing French and English.

Wikipedia tells us more about the album Baby alone in Babylon and I find Fuir le bonheur de peur qu'il se sauve that I add for today as well.

Françoise Hardy: L'anamour (1968)

Written by Serge Gainsbourg I only remembered the version by Françoise Hardy. But YouTube offers also a version by Gainsbourg and one by Jane Birkin. I prefer the one by Françoise Hardy. What about you? 

Lyrics

Serge Gainsbourg: La chanson de Prévert (1961)

I knew the melody but I had never really listened to the whole song. La chanson de Prévert. Amazing cover about l'étonnant Serge Gainsbourg, étonnant indeed...

Serge Gainsbourg and Juliette Gréco: La Javanaise (1963)

I felt like staying with Serge Gainsbourg and in my opinion La Javanaise is one of his best songs. On YouTube this video is one of the early version. I saw a reference to a service offered by the French Institut National de l'Audiovisuel at ina.chansons.fr . Unfortunately the visit to their site proved a complete failure: very slow download and impossibility to listen more than a few seconds. It's too bad as they could really offer a lot of good documents if they could get their acts together. I am afraid they are too bureaucratic for that. I did not know the song had been initially written for Juliette Gréco.

Lyrics