Photos: The French singer Françoise Hardy has died aged 80.
I was 15 years old and locked away in an all-boys English boarding school when I first became aware of the irresistible allure of what the French called le yé-yé - France’s contribution to the pop revolution unleashed by Lennon and McCartney in the early 1960s. As some of you may have heard me mention previously, it was one of those transformative moments that you realise, years later, shaped your life in ways you couldn’t know at the time.
Like every other schoolboy of that era, I was entranced by the Beatles and the rocking and rolling flood of wannabe rivals and imitators who followed them. The first record I ever bought was the Beatles’ All My Loving EP, released when I was 10. Five years later my tastes had expanded to the Beach Boys, Bob Dylan, the Bee Gees, The Who etc. I had no idea of the cataclysm that was about to shatter my ears.
In 1969, Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin released Je t’aime…moi non plus, their orgasmic concerto of sighed and whispered amour. The song’s heavy francophone breathings were denounced by the Vatican and banned by the BBC. When word finally reached my boarding school dormitory of the French bonking song no-one wanted us to listen to, we frantically scanned the radio wavelengths in search of a pirate station that might be defying the Pope.
Two things happened to me that night. First, I decided that I needed urgently to marry a Frenchwoman (I was blissfully unaware at that point that Birkin was actually English). Second, I needed to listen to more French songs. And that was how I fell in love with Françoise Hardy.
The announcement today of her death has left France in mourning for a lost icon. There was something profoundly lovely about Hardy’s fragile songs of youthful love and sadness - even if, like me, your French was too poor to understand more than a couple of lines. For a long time I thought that the opening verse of her aching hymn to loneliness, Tous les Garçons et les Filles, referred to boys and girls walking “dans la rue de Part-Dieu” (a district of Lyon). It turned out she was singing “dans la rue deux par deux” (two by two).
At a time when France, like too many western democracies, is riven by bitter division, politicians of every ilk were united in tribute today to a 1960s pop star described by Rachida Dati, the minister of culture, as “l’éternelle Françoise Hardy, légende de la chanson française”. With her melodies and sensitivity, said Dati, she had won the heart of an entire country. The prime minister, Gabriel Attal, said that “pour moi, c’est toute mon enfance”. I feel you, Gabe.
Hardy was never as glamorous as Brigitte Bardot or as strikingly beautiful as Catherine Deneuve; she was not conventionally pretty, yet her face was full of character, her eyes magnetic pools of mystery and promise. For me, she represented the perfect Frenchwoman, the essence of Gallic allure. She was a contemporary of English singers such as Petula Clark, Dusty Springfield, Cilla Black, Mary Hopkin, Sandie Shaw, Lulu. Yet she had that magic Frenchness that set her apart. You might call it je ne sais quoi.
She died aged 80 after several long and painful illnesses. With her long brown hair now turned white and short, she looked in recent years, if anything, more beautiful. I’ve got a lot to thank her for – it took me a while but I found my own perfect Frenchwoman. My desperate teenaged longings have come to happy life.
Sous aucun prétexte, je ne veux
Devant toi surexposer mes yeux
Derrière un Kleenex, je saurai mieux
Comment te dire adieu
Don't let your wife see this.
so you’re saying i was born because of her