Tuesday, July 14, 2009

France en Allemande

France Gall's career was waning ahome when she signed with Decca and scored some hits abroad in Germany. Some of the songs are laughably stereotypical you can imagine people bobbing along in lederhosen. But then other tracks are among my most favorite of all her work. Some of the songs are covers of foreign hits, but lucky France got to record lots of original music, unlike many of her Euro-contemporaries, and I like most of those too.

Recently someone likened her to a late 60s Britney Spears. To that I say "no!" Sure, her career was made possible by a pushy parent (songwriter father) and built on her looks, but as a singer has much more talent and skill than Brit. First, she could sing flawlessly in French, Italian and German (I'm not sure how flawless her Spanish singing was). Second, she could and did perform live—and in at least 3 of those languages. Thirdly, into her adult years, France dealt with much adversity admirably (ie, she wasn't Fd up).

The hair and dress in the drawing here is inspired by her German career. Also, she's singing "Haifischbaby" ("Baby Shark"). This panel appeared in my OGN "Love is the Reason" despite the fact that France circa 1968 appears in a modern-day story. Sure, doesn't make sense, but it's the only time I've ever featured an actual person in any of my comics.

1 comment:

SCARCEXL said...

Easy comic-book answer to this dilemna: it's a clone! :p
My favorite France gall song is "Débranche", mostly because she kept movng her head, following the rythm of percusion :p