Have I ever been to Paris? I have not been to Paris. Do you imagine that would in any way discourage me from writing about being in Paris?
Being Canadian, I have been to Montreal. Most notably, I was there for a couple of months in the summer of 1993, working on an IT project. Loved the city! Summer in warmth of Montreal is a pure delight of culture. Winter in the cold of Montreal is a pure exercise in observing one’s baby production organs shrivel to teensy proportions.
Can I say definitively that Montreal is the equal of Paris? I cannot say. Montreal doesn’t have a giant red tower / tourist attraction featured in the worst James Bond movie ever made. (Come on. It is just not that hard of a call.)
What Montreal did have in 1993, however, was MusiquePlus. (Myooo-ZEEK ploooos. You’re welcome.) This was the French-language version of Canada’s English-language version of MTV, known as MuchMusic. This, of course, was back in the day when music video channels could recognize a music video if it bit them in the ass.
If you live in any other Canadian province, the odds of you being exposed to music en français is just not that great unless you’re making an effort or watching a hockey game featuring the Montreal Canadiens and our national anthem on home ice. (Go Habs!)
Same goes for Quebecois singers, unless it’s Celine Dion, and she is not singing en français.
But, there I was, in Montreal, and there was time to kill in the hotel room, and there was MusiquePlus. Time to stretch the cultural legs a bit. This is when and where I encountered Liane Foly.
If you are a Francophone, you may well know of her. Jazz, and jazz-influenced music still thrive in France. You can find it on the hits chart, at least sometimes, in ways you can’t in this country since probably “The Girl From Ipanema” in 1964.
This is Liane Foly’s domain. Born in 1962, she began releasing albums in 1985, and scored some earlier wins with songs like “The Man I Love”. The album Les Petites Notes in 1993 was her breakthrough, featuring, among other songs, “Laisse Pleurer les Nuages”.
In English, “Let the Clouds Cry”. I couldn’t begin to translate the rest of the lyrics, and it matters not at all for the purposes of enjoyment. It might be better that I can’t, because then I can just focus on the music, and especially the arrangement.
Arranging is a term that has long gone out of fashion in popular music. There was a time, especially in the Sixties and Seventies, when the talent of orchestration was recognized as a specialized one. Elton John had an orchestrator on his classic albums. Lots of stars did.
So did Liane Foly. Her brother, in fact, Philippe Falliex, who was already a well-regarded composer. She had a crack producer, André Manoukian. The three of them produced a sound.
I can’t think of a complete English equivalent. The closest analog that comes to mind would be Swing Out Sister, who also traffic in retro jazz-ish sounds with glorious horn-based arrangements. Sade comes up sometimes; maybe for some of the slow numbers, but Liane is really a different deal.
I could wave my hands around more about the virtues of the song, but you can form your own opinion by watching the video on YouTube. This is “Laisse Pleurer les Nuages” as it was meant to be experienced by humans.
Sure, the song is in French, but the music video could not, from my outsider’s perspective, possibly be more French. Real France? Get real. Ideal France. Vogue France.
In fact, the central conceit of the video is that Liane is posing for the cover of a Sixties jazz album. The iconic jacket designs of the era make frequent appearances as framing devices, using English phrases like “Breezin’ Along”, “Jazz Pussycat”, and “Have Swing Will Travel”.
Liane’s poses are being captured a fashion photographer, a bald dude in shades who is…enthusiastic. I always thought it was the models who were supposed to traipse, but in France, maybe they have a somewhat different understanding.
Give future Richard Avedon his props, though, the scenarios merit some airborne clicking of the toes. It would take too long to enumerate the complete list, so here’s just some highlights. The obligatory sitting on a stool against a white background in a black turtleneck Steve Jobs would pine for. Liane, two dudes, a classic convertible and many red balloons. Liane in a garden setting, holding what appears to be a bundle of giant mutant asparagus. Walking on a rain-soaked bridge, twirling her umbrella with an inquisitive white terrier.
I can’t remember. Did I get to the prancing astronaut yet?
Les Petites Notes had other jewels; I personally like “Voler la Nuit” as a song as much or more. Liane actually recorded a version of the album with the majority of the songs translated into English, called “Sweet Mystery”, which was the repurposed title for “Laisse Pleurer les Nuages”. My French isn’t much, but it’s apparent the poetry of the original hit the dirt here.
Lots of other successes for Liane Foly thereafter, of course. MusiquePlus, unfortunately, ended its run in 2019. Hopefully I’ll visit Paris one day. I’ll call ahead to make sure to give the locals a heads up, so they can prep the photographer, terrier, Asparagus of God and boogie child space explorer.
How about you? Now that you have experienced the gloriously Gallic artistry of Liane Foly, what do you think?