France Gall - Avant la bagarre

Best choreography ever.

Comments (14)

  • Bruno  
    Hi Christine,me thinks this is very nice,France Gall looks great in this one and some nice moves as well!Welcome back (I hope)! :)
    #1 Reply
  • mordi  
    fantata!
    how brilliant to see her do some groovin- and it was totally worth the wait. i'm now going to fish out my black poloneck and jive around fake punching tall bearded men !
    #2 Reply
  • Mark  
    Yeah, not much of a set, but still very groovy! Glad to see this one.
    #3 Reply
  • mod*mom  
    i LOVE your site! this is great!
    #4 Reply
  • dom  
    one thing i hate about youtube is the comment section & the "round in circles" aspect it takes on (why dont people read the preceeding comments?)...shame i dont have the equipment to post the clip i have (from "Eurotrash") where Gainsbourg asks her about the song as it is patently clear that she was oblivious to the oral sex "subtext"(!) of the song. you could give that song to young girls to perform even today & many, if not most, of them would take it on face value without a second thought (presuming that they hadn't heard of it that is). it's not as if lollipops, sucking & aniseed were synonomous with fellatio after all!
    #5 Reply
    • Christine  
      thanks for your comments, all very interesting. "why dont people read the preceeding comments?" it seems for many youtube users and discussion forum irritants, the internet is not there for reading anything, but a virtual space on which to graffiti 'i woz 'ere'. some of the comments are so dumb or even offensive, it occasionally makes me question the validity of throwing this stuff out there to a wider audience. though, thankfully, some sane and appreciative comments will pop up and make me glad i did. i have that eurotrash clip (and another clip of that footage, though i can't remember where)... i should definitely post one of them. though i have my doubts it will necessarily convince. particularly, she says 'c'est tout' at the end of her explanation, an innocent, slightly nervous way of saying 'that's it, it's a simple story', but i can imagine that being interpreted as 'why would she say 'that's all' if she wasn't thinking there was more to it?' or something (argh, it's a scary mindset, trying to think like them).
      #5.1 Reply
  • dom  
    you only need to watch the british tv show "Brass Eye" to see how subject matter can be divorced entirely from meaning when presented in a particular way, the writer of that show even managed to get a prominent mp to raise the issue of a (spoof) drug called "Cake" in the houses of parliament! the writer j.g.ballard was able to distribute a short piece of writing he called "why i want to f**k ronald reagan" in the 70's (I think it was then) at a US republican party congress. the people who read it thought it was a serious minded political tract produced by a maverick think tank. it's all about context (not subtext!).
    #6 Reply
    • Christine  
      another point re: context - many of her songs around that time seemed directed at children ('quelle famille', 'j'ai retrouvé mon chien'), so its innocence didn't seem out of place. it's the last thing she or the audience would expect, an erotic song in the guise of a kids' song.
      #6.1 Reply
      • dom  
        in retrospect I think it was selfish of Gainsbourg (aswell as pretty nasty) to present her with that song, it could well have killed her career (at least perverted it in a way she had no control over & did not ask for), sometimes his "using" of attractive young girls seems uneasy, almost abusive, there's an "ugly man's revenge" about Gainsbourg (& many other men who've used attractive "muses" in music,film,etc., Polanski is another who strikes me that way) that if seen that way can be sinister.
        I think it was irresponsible & somewhat cruel what he did with lyrics as he was basically putting words in other people's mouths. I'm not even sure that the double entendre really adds that much to the song as you hear it, so for Gainsbourg it was pure mischief making & typical of his bitter misogyny/misanthropy that made him what he was/is.
        #6.1.1 Reply
        • Christine  
          yeah, that's definitely part of the simultaneous attraction/repulsion to gainsbourg. his amorality allowed for some interesting art or pop culture experiments, but from an ethical standpoint it can be hard to swallow (no pun intended). she went on to live a personal and musical life she was much happier with, but her musical output after last working with gainsbourg (72 - the last song he wrote her, 'les petits ballons' is similarly somewhat humiliating) is pretty woeful.
          so in a way, you could say he did kill her career, because she was obviously looking for more pleasant and earnest music to sing, which is unfortunately sappy dross. but there are lots of fans of that and as i said, she's been happier so who am i to say. however, it does seem to me that she came to doubt the quality that made her so great, which was that amazing raw way of singing, which she replaced with a cookie-cutter weak pop vibrato. the way she'd throw herself into a song with unusual abandon (the imperfect vocals adding to the charm of that) was her appeal, and because of that, gainsbourg found the perfect girl for his pseudo-innocent song... someone who would sing it almost sensually, but unknowingly. it's a good point about abuse, because it's hard to imagine how truly humiliating that would be.
          #6.1.1.1 Reply
          • dom  
            There is a 2 disc dvd of Gainsbourg tracing his career & disc 2 gets depressing toward the end as you see him deteriorating with each successive performance, you see him drunkenly manhandle his young child on stage & it is uncomfortable to watch. It brings home how self destruction & misanthropy is interesting & even romantic when viewed as "art" (through songs & persona), it becomes ugly & degrading when viewed outside of that context. I think that's why fame & showbusiness damages so many people, reality comes into stark conflict with the unreality of art.
            #6.1.1.1.1 Reply
  • dom  
    nice to hear "Adonai" on your radio thing...one of ennio's most amazing themes. funny though, the rest of the soundtrack that song comes from could not be more different (you can get it at allofmp3.ru btw).
    #7 Reply

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