h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Punk's great one hit wonder, straight from Belgium. How could you have a follow-up hit with a name like Plastic Bertrand? Of course, it was actually a damn fine song, but then I'm biased.

French song titles, eh..? What about 'Je t'aime', which was the first song ever to be banned by the BBC or something. Was that a one-hit wonder..?

I don't think it was the *first* song they banned, the BBC were very hot on banning even slightly dirty songs from 1960ish onwards- it was banned though, due to the blatent female orgasm going on in the background .

The couple that released it did do other songs, although I'm not sure if any of them were hits.

Good song only slightly let down by the b-side "pogo pogo". I feel ashamed that I have this knowledge any support groups out there?

Ca Plan Pour Moi - perhaps the best song ever written - ever.

I loved it, even though I didn't understand a word, perhaps BECAUSE I didn't understand a word. Especially the "woooh-ooh--oooh--oh" bit.

Do I need help? Maybe medication??

Somebody's been using it as a soundtrack to an advert (Ikea?)

I was all ready for the Bertrand revival, but it never came.

But let's face a punk who was safe enough for Seaside Saturday (or whatever that awful show on the BBC was called, really doesn't deserve to be rich, does he?

Interesting Trivia fact: Captain Sensible wrote some very politically incorrect lyrics for it called Jet Boy Jet Girl. It appeared as a B side to a Damned single, possibly Sanity Clause.

yep... ca plane pour moi was one hit wonder...

je t'aime (moi non plus) was one of MANY hits from serge gainsbourg and jane birkin...

banned because of the female orgasm eh?"... twas not banned in france...

it's lucky that no-one working at the BBC understood the lyrics either or it would have been made unlawful just to talk about it...

serge gainsbourg was a poet in his own way... with a succession of hits in... err france.

then again the lyrics were the real strengh in his songs.. difficult to translate properly in english i suppose... so yes je t'aime (moi non plus) was a one hit wonder in the UK...

you know what?!... i STILL remember some of the lyrics after all that time... hehe...

it goes like that: #... [lyrics too explicit tho' very poetical to be posted in a public forum] ...#

quite good me thinks...

loup

The Rolling Stones' 'Let's Spend The Night Together' was threatened with banning, however the BBC Board in front of which it was brought said they couldn't ban it, because Mick Jagger mumbled so much they couldn't work out what he was singing

Let us never forget Max Romeo's classic 'Wet Dream'. He tried to cionvince the powers that be it was about the struggles of a man with a leaking roof, which I think is pretty inventive, but doomed to failure myself...

dunno if it's a one hit wonder as such but it kinda qualifies:

"dur dur d'etre un bebe" by this little kid years ago... [jordan i think?!..] it was heard for a while in the UK...

unfortunately for that kid things went downhill after that...

================================
wet dreams and leaking roofs?!... err yes... of course... what else could it be?!...

loup

'lie down girl, let me push it up, push it up' is obviously referring to trying to mend the roof...isn't it?:

suddenly it all makes sense

shame "les sucettes a l'annie" was never translated in english...

another hit written by serge gainsbourg.. sang by france gale or petula clark i think... very much "double entendre" there... the female singer thought she was actually singing about a lollipop...
to put the story into context i will precise that it was a song from the 70s... so yep "wet dreams" and leaking roofs.. why not...

[mmmm... just realised that i gave a big clue about my err sense of humour there... oooops...]

... what about "barbie girl"?!... haven't heard that much from aqua since then, apart from another song that i can't remember...

loup

Hello all,

just on the 'Je t'aime... moi non plus' thing - most French people have no idea how little French music is heard in the UK. Because so much anglo-saxon music gets massive air-time in France, they kinduv assume that this is a mutual arrangement.

Serge Gainsbourg, RIP, was and remains an absolute giant of the French music scene. He produced over ten albums, all successful (although personally i'm not big on his later stuff) - always innovative and often provocative.

99% of French citizens would find it hard to believe that Brits couldn't name the singer of 'that song from the John Smiths ladybird advert'!

and even more so Jane Birkin, English 60s model and sometime Mrs Gainsbourg. She is still active in the French entertainment industry, singing, acting, and generally appearing on the telly with her eternally 'English' accent. Indeed, i think they even got her to advertise the Eurostar service for a while.

Anyone heard of Johnny?

cya
speef

mmmmm.... "l'histoire de melodie nelson" [if i remember the title properly] must be one of the best albums from serge gainsbourg.. [is "l'annee 69" a song from that album?!... yep another double entendre...]

i'm glad someone appreciates this singer/poet [i still think he is more a poet than a singer...] or confirmed what i said before...

obviously it would be difficult for a non french speaker to understand his work... so i wouldn't have been surprised if no-one else had heard of gainsbourg... but it's because i have been living in the UK for a while now so i understand more the situation than french people living in france...

spiff is right, the amount of songs in english on the french radio/tv etc is incredible... i think there have been attempts in the past to reduce the number of songs in non-french language... i dunno if it was successful but that would not have changed the problem... for french singers/groups to succeed abroad they have to sing in english...

which in a way makes "je t'aime [moi non plus]", "ca plane pour moi" and even perhaps "dure dure d'etre un bebe"... the exceptions to the rule...


re: johnny... do you mean johnny halliday?!...

loup

All this from a song that most of us liked because it went ooooh we oooh just shows to go you

How many Johnnies do you think there are, Loup?

But even when French bands do sing in English, it never hits uk radio...

mayben in the states, i dunno...

but even cool bands like noir desir don't cut it.

Personally, i rarely like French bands' attempts at English songs - specially noir desir.

There is Daft Punk - but i don't think they have the 'singing' problem.

oh, and JM Jarre - ditto.

Are you sure that Jordy 'bébé' song played in the uk? I only ever heard it in France. It was great.

The uk had something else... can't remember what. Well, apart from Kylie.

Old Joe le Taxi did pretty well, as i recall. Can't quite work out how or why. Something to do with record company marketing budgets i suspect. But then why couldn't that have worked with other French acts.

La Mano Negra have some great stuff, and Rita Mitsoku...

hi spiff... ?!..

hehe.. "joe le taxi" was a surprise to me as well...

another one i had difficulties with: "je m'appelle lolita"?!...

yep "dur dur d'etre un bebe" was aired in the UK... that's how we heard about it and why we bought the CD... for the kids...

jean-michel jarre... he is doing ok... but then again his work doesn't really need to be translated... the one in english i find funny is "revolution"...
i wish i could write lyrics like that...

from some of the names you gave i have to make a point of listening to some french radio... being the only french speaker in my home has its problems at times...

has anyone heard of the french group "telephone"?!...
they actually played in london in the 80s with the ramones...

one french speaking singer [from belgium] who got some of his songs translated in english and sang by various singers: jacques brel..

===============================================================

are most of the songs released for christmas one-hits wonders?!...
just a thought...

loup

Est-ce que j'ai heard of Téléphone? really, as tu besoin to ask me ça?

But, au fait, je ne suis familiar with only one meilleur hits

Le chien et os *rocks*!!!

a+
speef