What are your two favourite French songs? (Shamelessly posting for traffic!)

[ComingUpTrumps]

Hi everyone.

Sorry this is so boring but just posting for traffic if that's okay!

I had a thread on here a few weeks ago about a weekly hospital radio show I was doing, where I'd planned to do a feature on it about French music each week.

I've been asked to start off this week by bringing in a couple of songs from two different French musicians or groups. Only thing is i don't want to start off with my absolute favourites and am not really sure how to start it all off.

This is where you lovely lot all come in :)

Would you mind letting me know your two favourite French-language groups or musicians please? Or your two favourite French songs?

Thanks! :)

Francois Hardy

Bridgette Bardot

Destin by Celine Dion

For an earworm...
Pour in flirt avec toi. By Michel Delpech. Very old but singalong able!
Or more recent Jour Un by Louanne.

Pretty much anything by Jean-Jacques Goldman (showing my age here) but Je te donne is great

For an earworm...

Pour in flirt avec toi. By Michel Delpech. Very old but singalong able!

Or more recent Jour Un by Louanne.

I'm resolutely stuck in the 1960s so almost anything by Francoise Hardy. Our French teacher at school had us translating some of them. My fave at that time was Le Premier Bonheur du Jour.

I used to play CDs of Francoise Hardy's hits while I was working on my thesis, usually with a cat sat on my lap. She seemed to like these 2 in particular

apologies for lack of accents

oops just realised La tua mano is Italian, not French. Wouldn't be surprised if there is a French version out there somewhere, but it probably wouldn't sound as good.

Love Christophe Mae, il est ou le bonheur.

"Marcia Baila" by Les Rita Mitsouko.

And "La Mer" by Charles Trenet (or "ta mère..." as my French ex used to sing!)

Also "Belleville Rendezvous" from Les Triplettes de Belleville.

Ugh, all those breathy model/actress/whatevers and (though nobody has BU enough to suggest them yet) those horrific crooners like Franck Mickael and Adamo, who make Cliff Richard seem thrilling and virile in comparison. I'm embarrassed on behalf of the entire nation, and I'm not even officially French yet. Plus, all the American influenced modern shite isn't French just because it's 'in French'. Different language, same crap. You have to go back some way to find anything that is both listenable and tolerably distinctive in terms of national style. I did find this from 2001 though:

m.youtube.com/watch?v=3ycYkffpBDk

Ca plain pour moi. Plastic Bertrand.

Louise attack or for extra cheese my kids love Mika 'Elle ma dit'

Me and DH snogged our way through the latter half of the 1960's to
L'oiseau de nuit by Michel Polnareff.
Then when we had our kids we taught them a nursery rhyme such as .......
Il etait une bergere ,< about a shepherdess who kills her cat because it ate the sheeps milk cheese > and ..........
Aupres de ma blonde
Lovely tunes, both, but shame that our translation skills were crap and 40 years before Google Translate.

Ahh milliemolliemou I was hoping someone would mention Brel soon! Bloody love him 😍😍

I had 'Auprès de ma blonde' on a CD of rousing patriotic songs which seems to have vanished off the face of the earth, and I can't remember the name of the bass or baritone who sang them, only that he was really good! I think it was from an original LP from the 60s. I don't remember that song specifically but the story reminds me of Die beiden Grenadiere, one of my favourite songs of all time. I think a few of the French 'nursery rhyme' type songs may be highly unsuitable: I just looked up the full words of Au Clair de la Lune (subject of the first ever sound recording) and it's full of highly suspicious nocturnal shenanigans. I was talking about children's songs with my DP and he remembered onne which went something like

Joli mois de mai
Quand reviendras tu?
Pour chatouiller
Les poils de mon cul.

I think that one was a parody of something more high-flown but there were others in the same vein.

I like the soundtrack to Notre Dame de Paris - especially Belle and déchiré
Also Lara Fabian - Je t'aime

Téléphone - La bombe humaine
I think it's my all time favourite song ever.

When I first went to France everybody was in love with Roch Voisine's 'Hélène'. Seul sur le sable... Canadian, iirc.

Alors on danse - Stromae
Savoir aimer - Florent Pagny (I think)

Noir Desir Le vent nous portera

@ FineSally I really love how Italian sounds when sung with a French accent, like Tino Rossi singing 'Catari, core 'ngrato' - swoon! - or Tony Poncet for that matter, though my DP tells me his accent is definitely Spanish and not French. I also love how in France, Italian and other foreign language operas were usually sung in French until well into the 60s, thus preserving a distinctively French performance style which is now lost. It's the same sad tale of creeping homogenisation and blandness in both classical and popular music.

I first read the title of the song you posted as 'La ci darem la mano' which would be good to hear in French, since there have been so many great French Don Giovannis, but if it exists I can't find it.

agust Something a bit happens to the shepherdess when she confesses to the priest that she beat the cat to death with a stick (?baton}.
He suggests that her penance should include giving him a kiss after the obligatory 6 Our Fathers and 10 Hail Marys.
cominguptrumpsBrel should be included but some pedants may say that because he's actually Belgian he can't be included.Not me though.

Niagara, just anything by them. Early 90's throwbacks, but god they were good. Their videos were beautiful.

I love Émilie Jolie, particularly the song about the tap dancing ostrich.

A PP posted videos of Zaz who I was just coming on to recommend (though misnamed Zazie who is a different singer apparently!) She sings pop and also old style jazz songs, as PP said, total air of cool...