A hipster's progress: FOG #4: Lio

Friday, February 29, 2008

FOG #4: Lio - Amoureux Solitaires

In 1980, Wanda de Vasconcelos is 18, a Portuguese exiled in Belgium and already better known as Lio, thanks to the immense success of her very first single, "Banana split". She asks Jacno and Elli Medeiros, who have recently disbanded their punk combo the Stinky Toys but still perform as a duo, to adapt in French their song "Lonely Lovers". They agree, Elli taking care of the lyrics, Jacno of the music (as composer, producer and arranger), and here we go: "Amoureux solitaire" will become a hit.
Despite some up and downs in her career, Lio still performs nowadays.

There are several reasons for choosing that particular song as our fourth installment of "Frenchies Oldies but Goodies".

You know very well that I can't resist lovely young brunettes, of course.
Lio's first hit seemed too obvious a choice: after all, there is a trope in pop music where ingenues sing lyrics full of double-entendre (think Gall and Gainsbourg "Les Sucettes a l'Anis"), and "Banana split", like "Les Sucettes...", is an ode to fellatio. I'm still surprised that Cars Can Be Blue haven't covered it yet.
The production is quite characteristic of Jacno's at that period. He just had a huge hit with the instrumental "Rectangle", inspired by his meeting with Kraftwerk in a train. And in a way, Jacno is the naughty godfather of contemporary french electronica...
The lyrics of "Amoureux Solitaires" have a melancholy and an accepted self-delusion that appeal to my twoth side.

Hey you, tell me you love me
Even if it's a lie and we don't stand a chance
Life's so sad, tell me you love me
Every day's the same, I need some romance
A bit of plastic beauty to erase the shadows under our eyes
Some chemical pleasure for our brains too dull
Let our lives look like a perfect movie
Let's forget everything, ourselves included, what we really are
Lonely lovers in a dead city
Imaginary lovers, after all who cares
Let our lives look like a perfect movie