An anti-hippie song

The richness of French song (6/6)

Le Regard Libre N° 18 - Jonas Follonier

For the final instalment of «La richesse de la chanson française», we take a look at a song by Johnny Hallyday. Let's take a look at 1966, an important year for me, as it marked the beginning of the most impressive musical period in 20th-century French chanson.^th century: 1966-1968.

In the space of three years, the most paradigmatic songs of the new generation of singers were born: The No Doll, Love me, please love me, Love with you and Le Bal des Laze by Michel Polnareff; The playboys and It's five o'clock, Paris is waking up by Jacques Dutronc; La Javanaise and Bonnie and Clyde by Serge Gainsbourg; Black is black by Johnny Hallyday.

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In 1966, he released the song Long hair and short ideas in the album The lost generation. The latter had a specific target: the bearded singer Antoine. That same year, Antoine released his first hit: Antoine's Elucubrations. In one of his verses, Antoine presents Johnny as an old-fashioned idol: «Everything should change all the time / The world would be more fun / We'd see airplanes in the subway corridors / And Johnny Hallyday in a cage at Medrano.»

However, Johnny, who is not as dumb as his puppet in Les Guignols, will reply with the help of his lyricist Gilles Thibaut. Long hair and short ideas responds directly to Antoine: «If words were enough to achieve everything / Sitting on your behind with your arms crossed / I know in a cage I'd be locked up / But it's another story to get me in there / Because it's not enough to have long hair.»

More generally, the song takes aim at the hippies, whom the idol of youth disliked: «If Mr Kennedy / Today came back / Or if Mr Gandhi / Suddenly resurrected / They'd be amazed / When we taught them / That to change the world / All you have to do is sing [...] And above all, above all / Have long hair.» At the end of this serial, all that's left for you, dear readers, to do is listen to this fine example of disengaged song, sitting on your sofa next to your vinyl player, bal(l)ade in our lovely summer with your headphones, or on the convenient waves of YouTube.

Write to the author: jonas.follonier@leregardlibre.com