France Gall - Soyons Sages (1964)

Apologies for my long absence. My ME/CFS is always extremely debilitating, but every now and then hits me in a way that makes it difficult to do things I can otherwise normally manage, like the blog. I hope to return soon. As always, I am bristling with ideas and plans, but I have to put them on the backburner for now.

For now, I'll leave you with France Gall at her wavery high-pitched best, telling us to 'Be Wise'. The song was written by her father, Robert Gall, and Guy Magenta, who co-wrote such hits for her as 'L'Amérique' and 'Ne dis pas aux copains', and was originally released on the 'La Cloche' EP.

The adorable picture of France above is from Mademoiselle Age Tendre, March 1966.

Bad news: my YouTube account has been disabled and all my videos are gone. Yep, once again the YouTube police are on top of people like me who put up videos that are otherwise unavailable and that no-one stands to lose a dollar from, while stacks of scenes from popular movies and TV shows remain. Well done.

I'll consider hosting them elsewhere, or perhaps only featuring them on the blog. Though I'm sure there's nowhere like YouTube when it comes to having to constantly explain "I mean France the person, not France the country".

Links: French Lyrics & Auto-Translation
Buy: Longbox 3 CD: France Gall France Gall: 4 Albums Originaux

Comments (23)

  • Rob Mardin  
    Why oh why can't they leave the kids alone. Take care Christine x
    #1 Reply
  • Swanny  
    Nice to see you're back with us Christine. I wanted to mail you earlier as I had a friend who had his France Gall clips removed from his YouTube and wondered if somehow yours were exempt as they were still there. Unfortunately it seems a lot of people are losing stuff on there now. It's not like it's hurting anyone and we don't all want to watch 16 year old kids breaking arms and legs skateboarding!! Though sometimes I'd like to do just that to the little geeks that "perform" outside my house when I'm trying to sleep ;) How this YouTube clampdown affects my site I don't know, because I linked the clips I have on there to YT and I think the majority of them were yours! If they're gone, thanks for the loan Christine. MORE importantly I hope you are feeling much much better. With kind regards, Swanny. PS. I'm trying to get hold of the German version of Nous ne sommes pas des anges - Wir sind keine Engel in mp3 format. Know anywhere that I can get it? ;)
    #2 Reply
  • anon  
    thanks. i love this blog...feel better soon! :D
    #3 Reply
    • Swanny  
      Don't be shy, you don't need to be anonymous here. Unless you've got something to hide !! - Like a full collection of original music clips of France that no-one has seen before ;)
      #3.1 Reply
  • Woodshed  
    Hope you feel better soon. I expect the kids will desert YouTube for somewhere more accommodating in the near future.
    #4 Reply
  • Oscar  
    Hey Christine, I hope you are feeling better. It brings us great joy reading your new post :-) Damn YouTube! I checked my tube account and all your videos I favorited are gone....agggghh! On another note.....I bought that Longbox of France Gall and I highly recommend it to anyone who is a fan of her 60s music. There are pages detailing her music work from 1964-68 with pictures. All I need is to do is to learn French (love that Auto-Translation link :) Take good care of yourself Christine....we love ya!
    #5 Reply
  • Davecat  
    Good to have you back as always, Christine. :-) I know what you mean about YouTube; they gave me stick about some of my videos as well, so I've moved the lot of them to Dailymotion.com, and so far, I've encountered no problems... Take care of yourself in the meantime, okay? And thanks for the Mme.Gall!
    #6 Reply
  • jenny ondioline/starseed  
    that sucks about youtube. i checked my account and i use to have 15 videos saved, now i'm down to 8. bah. you tube has gone too corporate for my taste, hopefully there will be a you-tube competitor that will be more friendly to content like the stuff you used to post. *cross fingers*. i've been meaning to ask you, whatever happened to the get hip! message board? kinda missed it. anyways, hope you get well. i've never heard of ME/CFS, but reading up on it, it sounds pretty frustrating and annoying if it comes so unexpectantly and puts you out of commission for like that. anyways, get well soon!
    #7 Reply
  • Gemear  
    Hi Christine,
    I am really happy to see you posting again... your blog is the best!
    I can't believe youtube. I think we have seen its glory days. I have a stack of Serge/BB clips up there and you know I am just waiting for the day I try and log in and its all gone... recently I have seen some awesome collections of rare stuff, stuff you would never, ever see just go at the blink of an eye. It's a sad state of affairs but I am sure a newcomer will step in to save us all!
    Thanks again for the music.
    #8 Reply
  • sofia  
    lovely picture of France!
    swanny -> I have an mp3 of 'Wir sind keine Engel' if you're still looking for it.
    #9 Reply
  • Christine  
    Thanks, everyone. :)
    I was pretty careful about what I put up there. I didn't put anything from the Gainsbourg DVD or anything that was on INA.fr. Although looking at INA today, I noticed the Gillian Hills/SG clip is now there, so maybe that's what did me in.
    Davecat, thanks for the recommendation. I've been looking into Veoh and motionbox, too. I'm not sure yet if I want to make the videos so public again, or maybe create a smaller community where people can access them.
    Jenny, I couldn't host Get Hip! anymore, it took up way more bandwidth than I expected just from a few visitors browsing. I thought it was better to nix it sooner than later, before too many people joined. The idea was for it to move to a free forum host, but I'm not sure what Lush plans to do with it now.
    #10 Reply
  • Kate  
    "France is not naive, we are a smart country." Haha, You Tube. Or "COME ON, she HAD to know what those lyrics meant, it's so OBVIOUS." Argh.
    Sorry to hear about your health issues. CFS would really drive me nuts too.
    Also, yay for a 60s France Gall track I hadn't heard yet! I love how prolific they were back then, what with their constant singles. I dig the horns at the beginning. It would probably be better translated as Let's Be Wise though, since the -ons implies nous and she's speaking to her beau.
    By the way, I recently pitched doing a retro franco radio show on my uni's radio station. If by some miracle they go for it, I will obviously be playing some things I picked up from this blog. So thanks! And you will definitely get a shout out. Ha.
    #11 Reply
  • Swanny  
    Sofia-> I really would like "Wir sind keine Engel" is it possible to e-mail it to me? martin(dot)swann(at)judyteen(dot)fsnet(dot)co(dot)uk
    I don't know how to post my address up :(
    Christine --> Stay well PS, there was a Scopitone film for sale on ebay of Laisse tomber les filles !!! It didn't sell - no bids - 10 euro start price - will check if it has been relisted
    #12 Reply
  • Alan  
    This is the kind of song that is irresistible and a bit bitter, nice to hear it. Get well.
    #13 Reply
  • Christine  
    Kate - you're right, 'let's be wise' is more accurate. i was actually thinking us includes 'her'... but it's a fairly clumsy sentence i wrote :D. Agree about how prolific pop artists could be then, and some like FG seemed to get an unusual amount of amazing songs written for them. The Longbox Set really proves that. Cool idea for a radio show and I'm glad I get to contribute in some way :).
    Swanny - found the auction you mean. Doesn't look like they've relisted, but I'll keep an eye on it.
    Cheers, Alan! :)
    #14 Reply
  • Eulenspiegel  
    Well, thank you for this song. I didn't know it. Besides it comes with an extraordinary sound quality. Very funny, the fact that Gall's father wrote this song for her, because it is a straightforward, unambiguous warning aiming to settle, for Frances and his boyfriend, very strict conditions for sexual intercourse. ;-D a Serious decision to take!!
    #15 Reply
  • Swanny  
    Hi Christine and your avid followers, Just thought I'd let you know my daughter and I made this little videoclip of FG. We've put it up on YouTube and hopefully the url has appeared. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpnFNZwGwTQ if it hasn't, I'll post it on my site ForeverFranceGall.
    #16 Reply
    • Oscar  
      Hello Swanny....I saw the videoclip of FG and it was great! The song really complemented the video. Awesome!!!
      #16.1 Reply
      • Swanny  
        Thanks Oscar, more will follow, Hope you are OK Christine ! Not heard for a while, hope things are fine. Swanny
        #16.1.1 Reply
  • enchiladaofevil  
    I ran into the same youtube trouble. The problem is TV Melody/Tele Melody. They are the only ones who have complained and it seems they own the copyright to every damn video from the 60s. It's pretty shitty considering that Universal (owns the rights to Francoise Hardy) for example has a deal with youtube but these jokers don't and it's not like their stuff is available anywhere else. I've started seeing videos with the melody tag blacked out, hopefully that'll stop em. I actually like dailymotion better for their higher quality but it looks like TV Melody has gone after them as well.
    #17 Reply
  • Swanny  
    Hey there, It's been nearly a month now since your last activity on here Christine. I am worried for you and I hope that you are not too poorly. I check daily but do not post as I don't want to clutter up your site but as it's been a while I thought I had better try and make contact. Some others who visit here have also visited my site and have asked how you are. You see how much you mean to us in internetland;) Write soon if you are able or even dictate to someone who can let us know please Christine. X Swanny
    #18 Reply
  • Christine  
    Thanks for your concern, Swanny. It might be a while before I feel up to regular blogging again. But don't worry, you can tell I'm still alive if there's music showing up on my last.fm page! (last.fm/user/moonlitkitty).
    enchilada - Yep, it was Tele Melody that complained about 4 of the videos, and Studio Hamburg about one Beat Club one. It annoys me too, that they block this stuff but don't make it available on their site or anything. Thanks for the tip on dailymotion... I was considering them, but if they're getting targetted too, it's probably not worth the effort. I think I know where I'll put the videos, and I'll post when I've got them up. :)
    #19 Reply
  • dom  
    I hate youtube. I hate the mindless & often nasty comments, the dire pseudo "celebrities" it makes of non entities & the non exclusivity of it (as I am a snob). There must be some place where rare non available clips can be viewed without fear of deletion or vaccuous arguments about "Les Succettes"...a place for fans rather than "you tubers" (ugh!)
    #20 Reply
    • Swanny  
      Go to my site Dom ( see below ) leave me a mail address and we'll talk about the videos. Not sure if you'll get a reply soon off of Christine. So I'll fill in while she's out of action for a while. Hope that's ok with you Christine if you get to read this?? Swanny
      #20.1 Reply

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