French Music

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000005RMC/002-4688856-3007208?v=glance&n=5174

This question led me to a scholarly paper describing how most French musicians and leading music figures were at the forefront of fascism - and how some of these figures stayed in power afterwards.

Put that in your pipe et fume-le !!

http://rateyourmusic.com/list/PhilZ/french_progressive_artists/

you have to like the accordion though

What is it about French pop lyrics that I often find so clever and affecting? From Jacques Brel to George Brassens, Boris Vian's 'Le Deserteur', France Gall's 'Bonsoir Jon-Jon', Michel Fugain's 'Fais Comme L'Oiseau' and 'Une Belle Histoire'. There's a tradition of metaphor, of painful bluntness that I rarely get from English songwriting.

So many recurring themes - especially to do with war and hunting ('guerre', 'chasse') and also a general disillusionment with the world, a sense of ennui.
On 'Le Deserteur', a soldier writes to the president of France telling him he 'wasn't put on this Earth to kill people' and that he'll roam the countryside until the army catches up with him.
On Fugain's 'Fais Comme L'Oiseau', he declares that he feels lost and alone in the universe, that he's 'scared of the sky, winter, madmen and war'. Some deep and dark stuff for a mainstream chanteur. His conclusion is that he should make like a bird, live on fresh air and water with a bit of hunting and fishing on the side, and not let his troubles stop him flying high.