Voila

French Pop Wednesdays climbs up the Wall of Sound this week, with a leg-up from Françoise Hardy.

Françoise could do no wrong in the sixties, and this is one of her more heart-rending numbers, hailing from her 1967 LP Ma Jeunesse Fout Le Camp (in English it roughly means 'my youth has fucked off' but something is lost in translation...)

Unlike pretty much every other girl singer in France's pop scene at the time, Hardy had direct involvement in writing her own material; this was her final album for her old label Vogue and the first album under her own production company, Asparagus (a joke on her tall, thin physique). The sumptuous arrangements on the album are provided by such luminaries as Charles Blackwell, Jacques Dutronc and John-Paul Jones (yes, that John-Paul Jones). This bit of Spectorian splendour was the hit single. I didn't know there was a video until today, though.


(Merci, Abborna!)