French connections, part two

I’m going all Francophile again today.

J’adore ceci…

A classic scene from a classic nouvelle vague film -  Jean Luc Godard’s  ‘Bande À Part’ - with one of my favourite songs by French ensemble Nouvelle Vague.  I think it just fits so well.  The timing is quite something and, well, for me it’s just one of those satisfyingly complementary combinations.  Like peaches and cream, or rough paper and a soft pencil, or (just for you Godard fans) like Jean Seberg and Jean Paul Belmondo.  The dance sequence itself has also been cited as an influence for scenes in several other films, not least ‘Pulp Fiction’.

Nouvelle Vague, who also named their second album ‘Bande À Part’, frequently surprise with some of their more unlikely choices of cover versions.  If you know Lords Of The New Church’s original of this track, ‘Dance With Me’, you’ll appreciate how much they manage to change a song almost beyond recognition.  NV’s vocalist on here, Mélanie Pain (thank god she’s French, Melanie Bread just wouldn’t sound quite right), manages to make it sound so sensual, whereas Stiv Bators’ approach sounds, as you might expect, a tad more sleazy (much like his name).

Other tracks whose origins may be more familiar but which have been given the unmistakeable and often unexpected NV treatment to great effect are: 'Teenage Kicks',  'Guns Of Brixton', 'Love Will Tear Us Apart' and even 'Too Drunk To Fuck'…

Another personal favourite is their version of Depeche Mode’s 'Master and Servant', also sung by Mélanie Pain, along with Martin Gore.  Let’s play!

Special effects

I’m a bit of a sucker for a good cover version.  I think it’s that, as my musical taste has evolved and expanded over time, I really appreciate the different treatments that a song can receive and still sound great.   Recently I heard three cool versions of ‘Real Wild Child (Wild One)’ for instance – I came across them in reverse order – I only knew Iggy’s for many years and it always sounds good. Then I recently heard the cover by Jet Harris from 1962 and that in itself was a surprise – like the Shadows turned bad boys – which prompted me to check out the original by Australian rocker Johnny O’Keefe from 1958.   I love all three of these and each one so distinctive from the other. Same song, different angle.

Of course there are more examples of this than I have room to write about… and probably whole blogs devoted just to this subject alone (don’t even get me started on ‘I Put A Spell On You’…) but while I’m here I want to share another with you.  Being written by Ray Davies already suggests that it’s going to be pretty good – but it was one of those songs that the Kinks never officially released, although it was at least recorded in the studio for a BBC session.

Dave Berry recorded it in 1965 and gave it something haunting and atmospheric.  Then in 1998 it was released as a single by Hooverphonic, the Belgian trip-hop/rock/electro-pop/whatever-you-want-to-call-it band (genre names can be so limiting!)  This is such a different version, characteristically electronic with wistful vocals.  I hope you’ll like these two: one male, one female, many years apart, but side by side here.