One fantasy I have, and one that never left, is the ability to write lyrics to teenage pop music. Then again, since rock' n’ roll showed up on discs one can purchase, a lot of it was designed and planned out by older men for the youth generation. This is probably not that far off from Mad Men of Madison Avenue, which sold the idea of products geared toward youth and the currency shared with that youth. In France, Serge Gainsbourg wrote songs for teenage artists like France Gall, and perversely, Yé-Yé music genius Jacques Dutronc, 23, worked with 39-year-old lyricist Jacques Lanzmann, which made commentary on French youth and its culture. I based this on the thought of Lanzmann working with Dutronc on my fictional or fantasy tale of me working with Justin Bieber, which I published on my Substack page. That didn’t come to be the case, but I’m still intrigued by the relationship between Durtonc and Lanzmann.
Their first song together is Et moi, et moi, et moi, a very witty song regarding selfishness; a sample of their lyrics is Seven hundred million Chinese/ And me, and me, and me/ With my life, my little home/ My headache, my liver spot /I think about it and then I forget/That's life, that's life. Musically, Dutronc reminds me of classic Kinks songs from the classic era, and it may be the first French pop song that was directly influenced by British pop music sensibility but filtered through French culture. Gainsbourg and Lanzmann not only were older but also had the ability to do wordplay and puns within their lyric.
Lanzmann, in addition to writing lyrics to Durtonc’s melodies, was also a novelist, an editor for the Men’s magazine Lui, and a professional gambler. Dutronc also has a career as a major actor in many French films, including working with Jean-Luc Godard. Dutronc always seemed to be a man of great humor who didn’t take his music seriously, or more so, the image of a serious musician. But he was a professional guitarist before becoming a pop singer, and his recordings are generally magnificent.
As mentioned, his recordings from the 1960s were very much in the vein of garage rock or sophisticated, witty pop. As much as I love his early work, I think his masterpiece is his last full album of original music, Madame L'Existence (2003). It is very much a work by a man who was 60 years old at the time, and Lanzmann was 76 during these recordings. It reflects on a life lived and challenges the passing of time as one stands still, romance, aging, and the frustrations of existence.
When I was young, I wanted to hear only from the young. So, it is a weird duality of having songs in the 1960s written by older men for a youth market. There is something cynical about the process, but a twisted sense of humor makes it provocative. Now that I’m an older man, I want to hear pop music from older people. Youth is for youth and those who are older, with a memory, and pop made by figures in their 60s and older is music made for me as I watch the seconds go by on the clock, and focusing on the now, as well as the past. Dealing with death for the past two years, I know what that’s like, and I can expect more in the future. Funnily enough, the present is way more unknown and mysterious. I strongly recommend Jacques Dutronc’s Madame L'Existence because it’s about the present formed by its past.
Nice slice of the pop music world from a well respected man - Kinks rule.
Excellent observations.