This Week's Playlist #90 - The Embrace Cheesiness edition
My friend A picks up 5 songs for the cheesiest playlist :-)
Hello everyone!
This Week's Playlist - Season 2, Episode 38.
Enjoy this week's lighter playlist (compared to my regular raging heavy metal rotation), brought to you by my friend A.
The ‘Embrace cheesiness’ playlist
Hi! I am a refugee lawyer, a mother of three, and someone who has spent years trying to be cool. I gave up because it’s just too hard, life is short, and we’re all going to die.
When Thomas asked if I’d be interested in picking my five songs, I initially refused. I don’t work in music, and I feel like those last few years I’ve mostly just listened to the same 5 songs, and I have failed because my children prefer Céline Dion to Jimi Hendrix.
Then I realized, nobody here has yet celebrated the amazing power of Celine Dion and direct sentiments. So, I decided to do a cheesy playlist. Enjoy!
Thanks Thomas for having me!
TL;DR: I'm running a musical newsletter with a new guest sharing 5 songs each week.
There is a YouTube link for each of the songs on the cover, and here are the playlists for each streaming platform:
Tidal (coming soon)
Deezer (coming soon)
1. Véronique Sanson - Le Maudit
Véronique Sanson is a legend. Her first album, Amoureuse, was a revolution in the small world of French ‘chanson’.
Her breakup with pop singer Michel Berger was superb (she left the studio saying that she was going to buy cigarettes, and instead took a plane to America, where she married Stephen Stills).
Michel Berger and Véronique Sanson never reconciled, but continued a heartbreaking correspondence over songs for years: he writes seras-tu là, she answers je serai là. She complains that Ma musique s’en va, he says: suis ta musique où elle va.
In this song, she blames herself for the legendary breakup.
2. Luigi Tenco - Vedrai Vedrai
Dalida’s lover who lost a music competition and shot himself at 28 (even though he may apparently have been assassinated according to Wikipedia).
The raw power of a beautiful voice and a sad song in Italian (cliché #17).
3. Tom Waits - Ruby’s Arms
It’s impossible to listen to Tom Waits and not want to be desperate (preferably with a whisky in a dive bar at 5 in the morning while it’s raining).
My personal favorite is Invitation to the blues, but I felt that this playlist requested something a little more direct. Also there’s an excerpt from this song in a Godard movie. Cheesy, but chic.
4. Romeo Santo - Eres Mia
The discovery of Romeo Santos I owe to one of my clients from the Dominican Republic (but Santos is so famous that I should have known him anyway).
Little power speech about music - I always ask my clients to give me the title of a song they love when their legal case ends. They also often bring me food. Over the years, I’ve come to realize that love for food and music is probably the one thing that unites all of us (cheesy sentence #136).
I don’t have much else to say about Romeo Santos, but you likely know this one from his former band Aventura, and this one I believe is his most famous.
5. Jeanne Cherhal - Merci
A little graceful song to gratitude (and feminism (and Paris (and love))).
I honestly feel like five is cheating because I have so much ground to cover. I’ll add 4 as post scriptum and I’ll let Thomas deal with it.
6. Céline Dion - Parler à mon père
An instant hit in our household, and the reason why I gave up on Jimi. Céline’s voice is actually so subtle!
7. Otis Redding - Try a little tenderness
No particular comments. I just find it crazy that I first heard this song when I was in my 30's.
8. Goran Bregovic - Baila Leila
I just thought I'd sneak it in, because it's one of my favorite songs and I'm just so happy that I get a platform to say it out loud.
9. Noel Harrison - Windmills of your mind
Nobody cares about Noel Harrison, it's composer Michel Legrand's lyricism and elegiac beauty that matter.
Until the next time, Godspeed!
Thomas
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