Taking Sides: Georges Brassens vs Mike Skinner

sure, of course, though never as much cultural room as for piano + clear earnest whining. or beat box +, i suppose.

i slapped together a disc of mp3s by brassens off napster way back; his amusing songs are much better than his bathetic ones - of the ones famous enough to be napster hits. S = les copains d'abords.

little novels? detailed poems? vignettes seems more to capture the flavor i think - but i think we mainly listen for the attitude - if he seems earnest to you, and i think you're right, what's interesting is that it's an earnest sarcasm. sort of the inverse of ray davies who was sarcastically earnest [eg waterloo sunset].

I first heard Brassens courtesy of a French girlfriend in 1983 and was instantly hooked. Like Tracer, I could tell he was being witty by the tone of voice, rather than by understanding exactly what he was saying. To this day I listen to Brassens in that way. What's remarkable for me is that, for such a 'dry' and 'literary' singer, the thing that really strikes me and appeals to me about Brassens is the 'electroacoustics', the texture of his sound. (At this point really bored people could read my U+K essay The Electroacoustics of Humanism.)

This relates to something which is also U+K for me: that it is precisely narrative, storytelling, using music in a way which appears to render it secondary, which actually gives the most interesting results in purely musical terms. You need a story to take you beyond story into pure sound. The pure sounds which result from stories are more interesting than the pure sounds which result from jamming at IRCAM or whatever. It was this realisation which made me see a possibility to meld Brassens with Pierre Schaeffer, which is really the fundamental idea behind my current work. I mean 'the Brassens tradition' (straightforward, almost medieval folk tale-spinning, with a warm, direct, populist appeal) with 'the Schaeffer tradition' (boffin in lab coat sitting at console working directly on the fabric of sound; elitist and academic).

Now, whether Mike Skinner is doing that more successfully on his last album than I am on mine, is for others to decide. (I was going to call my album 'The Pirates' but changed the title because of 'Original Pirate Material'.) Now, next mission -- to cross the fables of La Fontaine with the sound of mutating amoebas. Or has Bjork already done it?

Pinefox to thread?

This seems too, er, essentialist for my liking. Certainly there's a huge element in truth in this notion, and it applies to some extent to all the arts: those most interest in new content--and who are sometimes overt traditionalists-- are often the ones to develop the most sophisticated form. It's a really alluring paradox, but it doesn't tell the whole story. There are people who quite wilfully downplay narrative content (overt meaning) and still arrive at remarkably inventive music.

Or what Tracer said. God bless you Tracer.

tho that may be a new accusation for Momus?

funny how that happens

I'm really digging this guy right now, having come to him via Jake Thackray.

Yes the lyrical plots can be hard to follow, even for Francophones, but as mentioned upthread it's the acoustic timbre of the guitar versus the syllabic ricochet of his voice that will make even étrangers listen up.

I like the unfamiliar territory these songs seem to inhabit - at once catchy and familiar, but also strangely awkward - they're designed and written around a French meter, so you couldn't comfortably sing in English over them.

I'm in particular adoration of possibly his most famous lines from La Mauvaise Reputation:

"Mais les braves gens n'aiment pas que/l'on suive une autre route qu'eux"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qldI6a8VZ0Q

The "que/qu'eux" words are finely clipped, whereas more orthodox English songs traditionally elongate the last vowel on each line. Hear how much he rolls his "R"s - more than is usually required in French, and far more than many other French singers, who often dampen rhotic syllables when performing in order ease pronunciation and possibly to appeal to Anglo-ears. In this way, if Brassens' tongue had laces, they'd be tied together. He performs this difficult one-legged trot in an inimitably sage and steady style - always knowing, never clever.

So no wonder - unlike many other French-language singers such as Brel, Trenet and Aznavour - that so many have tried and failed to reinterpret these songs into English. I guess this is also why Yorkshireman Jake Thackray's deformed, rolling style sounds so quaint upon first listen, Brassens having been his main stylistic reference point.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG95f7euQOo

Jake did English versions of a few Brassens songs too, and tho my French isn't strong enough to judge by ear how close the translations are, he makes them work imo.

well fuck my hat, i didn't know that. which thackray songs were they, do you know?

"Brother Gorilla" for one

"Isabella", "Over to Isobel". Maybe more. I thought "One-Eyed Isaac" was but maybe not. It certainly sounds like a cover. The web sources aren't very clear tho.

It's not a cover, but it is especially dark and troubled

That "but after all ones heart's ones own" line sounds translated from French, and the tune is one his most Brassens-esque.

I've got the album, it's deffo a Jake song

Oh no I'm sure, I was just explaining why I was mistaken.

Right. What a great song.

And do you not think it's quite a French locution there, like his brain was thinking the lines thru in French first?

(It's frequently my favourite Jake song btw so I've been thinking about this for a bit)

I'd have thought "It Was Only A Gypsy" could have been - something strange about the story and meter.

Anyhoo, sorry, this thread has re-prompted me to listen to as much Brassens as poss.

xpost - actually looking at the lyrics, to "...gypsy" it couldn't be a translation. I don't get the final line "the house is full of clothes pegs"...?

My fave Georges Brassens, other than La Mauvaise Reputation, is Je Me Suis Fait Tout Petit, which has the best of meandering melody lines.

Gypsies sell clothes pegs... errrrrrrr, you must know that surely?

Traditionally sold by gypsies.

oops xpost

these days they normally try and sell me stolen tumble-dryers, but anyway... kick a ball in the street etc...

Well no need for clothes pegs if you've got a tumble dryer is there?

Dude we've got a tumble dryer but still peg out if it's possible, dryers cost a fortune to run.

How many trees cut down to make one clothes peg etc etc

Don't know, What tree does plastic come from?

je n'ai pas un jardin

:'-(

[le pleure]