Being a chronic night owl and a part-time insomniac, if I’m not reading, listening to music or spacing out in the wee hours of the night, I sometimes find myself watching TV when most people are sleeping. Surprisingly, there are some great shows after midnight in France. Perhaps I can dare say the programming is better after midnight than at any other time.
Last night, I watched “Taratata” a music show hosted by one of my favorite animateurs (hosts) named Nagui. He’ll cover a wide variety of music and bands and musicians perform throughout the program. Sometimes, this show is just too excellent. It vaguely reminds me of the the short-lived Sessions at West 54th first hosted by Chris Douridas (KCRW) and later David Byrne.
On Taratata there were lots of musicians/bands: M, Camille, Bénabar, Katie Melua, Feist, Astonvilla and Arthur in the night’s lineup. Each played several tunes and then they mixed it up with duos. I loved the duo with M and Camille singing “Au Suivant” / Next (1964) by Jacques Brel. I am not much of a Jacques Brel fan (*gasp!*) but I do like this song and this made me look for a couple of his versions, just to hear it out of curiosity. Actually pretty awesome, Jacques, but I definitely prefer the modern version of it with M & Camille. (Though, if you’re a Jacques Brel fan, you’ll probably love this version better. and this version too!)
Click on the photo to the left for the performance of M & Camille’s interpretation of Au Suivant on YouTube. My blog template, for some reason, will not let me embed the code and the player to play it on this site. Grrr!
In a nutshell, the song is about a man regretting that he’s been a follower during his life. French lyrics for “Au Suivant” are here. A translation in English for “Next” is here. (The English version took many artistic liberties but it works nicely.) I hope you like it.
Anyway, a few remarkable things happened last night after watching Taratata:
1) it inspired me to explore even more French music; 2) it made me want to look for M’s Qui de Nous Deux, Je Dis Aime and Camille’s Le Fil; and 3) I now sort of kind of a little bit maybe like Jacques Brel slightly more than before. (I think he was a performer that you had to both watch and listen to – not just listen to without seeing him.)
3 Comments so far
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Brel definitely had to be seen – he was an absolutely dynamite live performer. I personally love “Le Plat Pays,” but that’s probably because I am from northern France.
Comment by Elisabeth 08.25.06 @ 8:38 amPowerful lyrics; I can’t say that I was overfully impressed by M (and I have as yet to hear Brel’s version of it), but many thanks for getting me to that site—I had a lot of fun looking at a bunch of other music videos :>
Comment by PretzelBug 08.25.06 @ 9:48 ami think i can only take brel in very small doses, i think, elisabeth. but i only know his “standards” so i’m sure he has better than the pop songs. i’ll try to track down le plat pays and take a listen.
the jury’s still out on m, pretzel; this has just sparked my interest a little more to check out his stuff. the hair, though now is his signature look, i feel, has to go. it doesn’t seem to go with his personality but i must say, DOES spell the letter M. 
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