19th August 2011

There we were, in a really dark place at silly o'clock and slightly worse for wear. Relying on my hoofhands to try to find this song on Youtube. Predictive text didn't help. I was trying to convince my friend that this was one of the best pop songs ever written.

It could well be true, too. Certainly those at Eurovision 1965 agreed with me - it finished 1st and gave Luxembourg the win.

However, for those not fond of Eurovision or the little duchy, don't despair (although I can't imagine why you wouldn't be fond of either of those - both are excellent).

The partnership of composer Serge Gainsbourg and quintessential ye-ye singer France Gall was never going to be a happy one. Her, a fresh-faced innocent; him, a hard-smoking older man. Many of the works written by Gainsbourg for Gall featured strong sexual innuendo (Les Sucettes for one). The songs were so innuendo-laden, in fact, that Gall refuses to talk about that time in her career.

This song is one of those tracks. Gainsbourg described it thusly: "The songs young people turn to for help in their first attempts at discovering what life and love are about, are sung by people too young and inexperienced to be of much help and condemned by their celebrity to find out".

Poupee de Cire, Poupee de Son itself translates as Doll of Wax, Doll of Bran. However, that is just one interpretation as Son also means sound. It is this wordplay that characterises Gainsbourg's writing and causes the innocent Gall to come across as a Lolita-esque seductress. Her blonde bob, contrasting eyebrows and youthful voice lend to that image too, but it is the rollicking music in the background that really elevates this to greatness, in my eyes.