Then, earlier I was listening to my MP3 collection, when Sonic Youth’s cover of ‘Ca Plane Pour Moi’ (sample, 500K+ sample)comes up. I’m not sure if Thurston Moore is just improvising, but it sounds like it. Pardon his French, so to say.
Originally the song was sung by Plastic Bertrand and became quite a hit in Europe for reasons unknown to me. The only thing I remember of this phenomenon is a guy wearing a Michael Jackson jacket and lots of trampolines, things that don’t show up in the official demo clip. Maybe it was a localized (for Dutch public only) version of the clip I saw. Or maybe it was one of those ‘live’ performances on the Dutch Top of the Pops show.
So why even bring it up? When listening Sonic Youth’s rendition of the song, I found this video of a performance of (what appears) the French version of ‘Canadian Idol’ ‘American Idol’ or uh, whatever show it is, of a guy singing the very same song. Apparently this song apparently strikes a note with people from my generation, which I find interesting but mostly, embarrassing. How come that the most obnoxious songs always pop up when 40 is around the corner?
Minor update: Lyrics of ‘Ca Plane Pour Moi’.
The 1978 live video of Plastic Bertrand was on Much More Music last night and I was reminded again of how he provided the perfect retort when faced with claims of French cultural superiority.