All the Music I’ve Recently Downloaded

Pre-France:

• Use Me- Bill Withers
• Little Lies- Fleetwood Mac
• Tusk- Fleetwood Mac
• Time of the Season- The Zombies
• She’s Not There- The Zombies
• These Days- Nico
• Suzanne- Francoise Hardy
• Sunny Afternoon- The Kinks
• Someone to Watch Over Me- Ella Fitzgerald
• Moonage Daydream- David Bowie
• Oh! You Pretty Things- David Bowie
• Lust for Life- Lana del Rey
• Misirlou- Agent Orange
• Pipeline- Agent Orange
• Pipeline- The Ventures
• Misirlou- Dick Dale: All the surf music, both hard rock and otherwise.
• Le Rempart- Vanessa Paradis
• Lay, Lady, Lay- Bob Dylan
• Jolene- Dolly Parton
• The Fire- Bishop Briggs
• Blue Denim- Stevie Nicks
• Ain’t No Sunshine- Nancy Sinatra
• Da Ya Think I’m Sexy (ft. DNCE)- Rod Stewart
• Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In- Fifth Dimension
• Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds- The Beatles
• Les Etoiles- Melody Gardot
• Heaven Is In The Backseat of My Cadillac- Hot Chocolate: Found via a cadillac commercial.
• Heart of Gold- Neil Young
• Aicha- Cheb Khaled
• River- Ibeyi
• The State of Massachusetts- The Dropkick Murphys

Post-France:

• Unforgettable- French Montana
• Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy)- Big & Rich: Despite not having seen it I’ve been influenced by Kingsman’s soundtrack.
• Saturdays=Celebration- Big KRIT

Playlist: Long Sultry Summer

The first of my anemone flowers started blooming yesterday, which means summer is drawing to a close. Or more accurately, that the end of summer is drawing to a beginning.

Summer isn’t really saying goodbye until the asters and goldenrod are in full swing.

My plane tickets have been bought- my ticket, really, because as of yet there is no return trip.  A one way trip to Charles de Gaulle.

And I may have watched the last film that I will watch that takes place in my city- the last one before I go. It was Gone Baby Gone.  I love it when films make detours to my hometown to find unsavory people, murder victims, and other desperate characters. My favorite movie trope.
And I’ve decided that Jared Leto and Casey Affleck share a category in my head- creepy and lanky white boy actors who seem to take themselves too artistically seriously and who I don’t want to meet.  Much as I admire Jared Leto’s ability to wear way too much Gucci at once. And much as I admire Casey Affleck’s… nothing really, never mind.

Yé-yé, It’s Summer!

Music for me movies in seasons, and incidentally every summer I find myself straying away from the top of the charts and toward music that fits my one part relaxed, one part nostalgic mood.
One genre that I return to year after year is yé-yé music (henceforth called ye-ye because I’m too lazy to deal with the accent aigu repeatedly), a genre of music, mainly French- but also from Italy, Spain, and Portugal- that was popular in the 1960s.  It’s basically the continental version of American 60s surf music (of which I’m also very fond).

So this will be mainly French (because prior to writing this I had no idea the style included other countries and I am now planning and thrilling at the prospect of the impromptu research I get to do and music I get to find!)

French Covers of English Language Songs

In honor of the French election (cringe), I decided to create a list of French covers of English language songs.  Now, if the French election (another cringe) is the reason I’m scheduling this particular post for this particular day, there is a more general reason that explains why so much French music has been kicking around in my head.
Simple: spring. Warm weather and the promise of summer is always the season when I bust out the sixties French music, the ye ye songs, the music of Francoise Hardy, Sylvie Vartan, and France Gall.
And then I stumbled on a few amazing cover songs, and so this list was born.
(And aside on politics before we get into the clean fun of music: the rising tide of problematic anti-immigrant right-wing nationalism is frightening. There, I’m done. I refer you to John Oliver).

Ahem, what was that? Ah yes, music!

Sounds of Summer

 

Some songs strike me as being summery, even beyond the ice cream truck tune and the songs we learned at girl scout camp.