Magical Sounds in France

Just a quick little post before I put together something to wrap up the French Experience. It's been an amazing week, with a strange and unforgettable race, and I'm boosted by the strong showing we had with Alex Hofmann's fabulous 5th place and also Alex Barros' intial pace during the half wet/dry conditions, which saw him rocket up into second position early in the race. My boys are really making my proud, and I'll deliver a full race report as soon as I can. Woot! Two top five finishes in just five races already - Bring it on, Mugello!

For your listening pleasure, The Second, and perfect, Song for Le Mans!

In the meantime, I wanted to put out a second Le Mans song, which amazingly enough, was delivered to me on Saturday night before the race while I was watching a talk show on Channel 2, at 10:15 PM. On Tuseday afternoon, as we were driving to the racetrack after arriving in Paris a few hours earlier, I actually heard the song I had intially put up for this race on the radio! The song clicked perfectly with how I had been feeling leading up to the French event, but over the next few days the weather shifted, and so did my mood. I'd already been thinking about adding a second song, because somewhere deep down, I knew that the first Le Mans Song wasn't *just right*. In France, I was fighting some serious hayfever on most days, with watery eyes, runny nose, sneezing, the usual, and by Saturday night I was quite tired. I made it back to the hotel around 9:45, flicked on the tv, and surfed around a little bit before settling on Channel 2, which had some talk show going on with live music interspersed throughout. I grabbed a quick shower and when I came out of the bathroom, this girl was onstage, just sitting on a stool. The song started, and I knew immediately that THIS was the song for France. I sat, entranced, as the song played out, and the tv show shifted to images of different bandmates, psychedelic colors flowing onscreen, and this woman just singing such a perfect song. Her body language betrayed nothing about her, but the vocals and words were loud (louder than the studio version), and all I gathered was that she had a slight English accent. The commentator jumped in after the song ended, but I couldn't make out a work he was saying other than . . . "VoooVoovvoo BoobooVooo avec Charlotte BooVooo je Sous", or something like that. The song stuck with me, and I asked Thomas, our French team member, the next day if he knew of anybody called Charlotte Bou-Something. He hadn't heard of her, haha, but it was worth a try. After the race, we drove back into Paris to spend the night before our morning flight, and sometime after midnight, the SONG came on the radio. What should have been a two hour drive morphed into 4.5 hours through thick traffic, and to add to my frustration, the DJ didn't say who the song was by. I landed in BCN on Monday, late afternoon, and upon waking on Tuesday morning (today), I began a quick search through the internet to find this mysterious woman and her fantastic song.

Victoire!

"5:55 is the second album by French musician and actress
Charlotte Gainsbourg. It is also her first album release
in twenty years. Charlotte collaborated on the album with
French duo Air (One of my favorite groups!), English musician Jarvis Cocker, Irish
singer-songwriter Neil Hannon, as well as Radiohead's main
producer Nigel Godrich (ooooh, spacey!). "The Songs That We Sing" and "5:55"
were released as singles. The album went platinum in France,
selling over 300,000 copies.

In order to be able to take her distance from her famous
father and mother (Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin) the
singer has decided to sing in English most of the album
(leaving only one song in French, Tel Que Tu Es, meaning
As You Are). Critics have been very positive in France,
describing this effort as a total achievement from all
points of view. Anglo-saxon critics have been more mixed,
saying that Charlotte's second album doesn't sound different
enough from her parents' work, maybe because Charlotte's
voice is very similar to that of her mother, Jane Birkin."

Magnifique!

Oh, and speaking of cool sounds, Bob is back on MotoGPod, his original podcast about MotoGP, and there's a nice little section where we talk a bit about Shanghai and racing. Click Here for the lastest MotoGPod episode.

Posted by Liam on May 22, 2007 04:13 PM | Permalink