Five French Covers of English Hit Songs

I was your typical ten and a half year old. My reading preferences were the sports section and MAD magazine, schoolbooks only when necessary, and I loved having "Louie Louie" and "Surfin' Bird" on the top 40 at the same time.

There was another song on the radio, with just a guitar, and a woman singing: Dominique, a-nique, a-nique, something
something . . . The sort of thing that'll get your attention at a young and impressionable age.

When she sang on the Ed Sullivan show, there was proof: she really was a nun.

There wasn't a lot of French in songs after that. One line from Chuck Berry's "You Never Can Tell" (c'est la vie, said the old folks), another from "Michelle," "Je t'aime" that was half singing and half heavy breathing, and a verse from the New Seekers' "Look What They've Done To My Song, Ma." By then I was in the middle of semester one of college French and knew what ils ont changé ma chanson meant. French music was still Maurice Chevalier singing "sank heaven . . . for leetle gerrls" and Annie Savoy setting the romantic mood in "Bull Durham" by playing "La Vie En Rose" from an Edith Piaf red label Columbia 78, just like the one I had.

Then I moved to a US border town where French radio and TV from Canada could be had off the air. During that first summer, French TV aired a retro-pop series titled "Le vent des anneés 60s" ("The Spirit Of The 60s"), featuring interviews and black and white TV footage of Quebecois pop groups, on Saturday nights right before Expos baseball. (An evening of TV heaven for the American Francophile.)

While I learned about Les Miladys, Les Gendarmes (The Police, hi), and Tony Roman, and picked up a few French phrases, it occurred to me that these French versions, often criticized for being inferior copies of the English originals, could serve as a helpful tool for learning French. Too bad they weren't used back in the day, I thought, to supplement the dialogs we used in the language lab. Learning word-by-word, and conjugating verbs, always seemed like work, but I only had to hear "ces bottes sont faites pour marcher" once to remember that it meant "these boots are made for walking."

I started searching French music sites for more covers, compiling a list, and learning more French in the process. The list has over three hundred titles. These are five of my favorites.

"J'en suis fou" - Dick Rivers et les Chats Sauvages
("Love Me Do")

His Anglo name had me thinking he was a bilingual French-Canadian. Actually, Hervé Fornieri was a Frenchman who loved anything American to the point of taking the name of Elvis Presley's character in the film "Loving You." He named his band, in Fifties style, "the wild cats." It's even more fun to hear, in another language, songs you already like. "J'en suis fou" = "about her, I'm a fool." "En," pronoun invariable, about (him, her, it, them). I looked it up.

"C'est ma chanson" - Petula Clark
("This Is My Song")

Pet, being British, is the ringer on the list. She's recorded dozens of songs in French, and others in Spanish, German, and Italian. This French version of her English hit has the opening verse left off the American single release. Like all the helpful songs, its lyrics are simple and easy for beginners who don't already know the English words to follow.

"Si j'étais un charpentier" -- Johnny Hallyday
("If I Were A Carpenter")

Johnny Hallyday I knew about, from his covers in French-accented English of early rock and roll hits. "Bee bop a loola, sheez my bay-bee . . . " Research revealed that he was the king of pop in an era when quickie French versions of American hit songs sold millions in France. Some are dreadful. As pop matured, however, he grew with it. "Voudrais-tu alors m'épouser, en porter notre enfant," he sings. Would you then marry me, and carry our baby. The French version's story, like that of Tim Hardin's English original, is told via Biblical metaphors.

"Pauvre Sylvie" -- Sylvie Vartan
("Poor Poor Pitiful Me")

I saw four of Mme. Vartan's albums on E-Bay for two bucks and took a chance. Look out, Warren Zevon! This Zevon song is one I never expected to hear in another language. It's actually a cover of Linda Ronstadt's version, the more well known. In it, Mme. is having a bad day: rain, forgotten umbrella, lost car keys, oh, whoa, poor Sylvie . . .

"Le temps du muguet" -- Fernand Gignac
("Midnight In Moscow")

Really an "oh, wow" song. I didn't know that "Midnight In Moscow," a 1962 instrumental hit, had words. Without it, I wouldn't have leaned muguet, the French name for the spring flower lily of the valley, or the verb flâner. To stroll, to wander, to do nothing in particular. French, in which less can be said in more words than in any other language -- which is why treaties have been customarily written in French -- has one verb that covers a variety of ways to goof off.

Following along with the French words, printed out from Internet lyrics sites, and the occasional visit to my French-English dictionary and old textbooks, caught me up. Six years after starting the covers project, and thirty after feeling lost in Français 101, I never thought I'd be IM-ing French radio shows to say merci for playing yet another cover I hadn't heard.

My record collection has another study aid; the album whose first song prevented "Louie Louie" from topping the Billboard charts, with its booklet of French lyrics translated into English. Now I know what the Singing Nun was singing about. I'm guessing that I'm the only person to ever add "Dominique" to a road trip tape.