Jacques Dutronc

Jacques Dutronc is one of those artists that got started in the 60s and whose tunes have not aged too much (when compared to most of that era) probably because of his talent (he writes the music) and the clever lyrics that usually came from a guy named Jacques Lanzmann, a pretty famous writer/songwriter. Back then, a lot of "happening" tunes were covers of american hits by guys like Johnny Halliday, Claude François, Richard Anthony, and many others (fans and interprets were commonly referred to as the "yéyés"). Jacques Dutronc never got into that cover mania and as Martha would say, that's a good thing.

He's been making tunes through the decades but he was definitely most prolific in the 60s. Since he's done a bunch of movies, he has always been in the public eye. His wife of many years is Françoise Hardy, a pretty famous singer that also get her start in the 60s.

In the 80s, he teamed up with a monument of French music, Serge Gainsbourg, for an album called "Guerre et Pets" ("War and Farts"), a play on words at the expense of Tolstoï's novel, "Guerre et Paix".

I think he's been wearing Ray Ban sunglasses since the 80s.


Il est 5h, Paris s'éveille


Les cactus


L'Opportuniste. In the vid, you can see seated from left to right: Jean Yanne, Sacha Distel, Gilbert Bécaud, Francis Blanche, and Joe Dassin who seem to play around with their jackets. It's because Jacques says "je retourne ma veste" in the chorus. "Retourner sa veste" (literally, "turn one's jacket inside out") is an expression often used in politics, when a politician changes his mind about something (being opportunistic, thus the title of the song). This song was covered in the 80s by Indochine.


L'Hymne à l'Amour. This is from "Guerre et Pets" and the lyrics are typical of Gainsbourg, that is, not too politically correct.