NOFX, “Les Champs-Élysées” (Joe Dassin)
If you think that French culture is old-school and can’t cross the borders, we are sorry to say that you are totally wrong. The peeps at the Institut français in Edinburgh have take on the challenge to show you just how inspirational French songs can be for Anglophones singers.
If you ask non-French people about French songs they know, one of their first answers will probably be “Les Champs Élysées”. We guess we’ve found 3 reasons for that:
1. It is the most popular French place in the world (with the Eiffel Tower),
2. The lively rhythm and the “palalalala” punctuating each “Auuuuux Champs-Élysées” are easy to sing and remember (no need to speak French),
3. It seems to depict perfectly the view tourists have of the Parisian atmosphere: jolly, frivolous and heady…
But most of all, it’s also because the song is 100% French!
Well… Be ready guys, this is absolutely false! This tune you know sung by Joseph Ira Dassin (aka Joe Dassin. Yes, the long-hair guy of “Le petit pain au chocolat”) was first of all… an English one! Unfortunately, despite “Waterloo Road” being also about two people hanging around in a street of the UK’s capital city, the band Jason Crest never got any success with it. Translated and arranged only one year after its British version, “Les Champs Élysées” got an impressive success in France and abroad (especially in Russia and Japan).
And then, the nineties happened, and this happened… We still cannot explain why and we don’t really know how, but it happened: a Californian punk band did cover one of the most simple and naive French love songs. And the result is actually pretty good! First of all, we love the way the guys say “Deux, Trois, Quatre” (or “Deuuu, Twaa, Cat”). The energetic drums and the fantasist trumpet renew this lovely but silly song by giving it a youth therapy. And for that, we want to say “Merci, les gars!”.
Ps : So yes, you got it, this was our first “covered cover”. In a mise en abyme way, we just wrote about a band covering another cover. 1 + 1 = 2. Easy-peasy! Or “Fastoche” as we say… ;-)
Ps 2: Funny ending fact: If you love Wes Anderson’s cinema, you may have heard the original song (well not the original-original, but the one by Joe Dassin) in 'The Darjeeling Limited' at the really end of the movie. D’you remember ?