Nothing but the truth

This is my new favourite Clothilde song.

It was the 4th track on her 2nd (and final) ep, and it has all the hallmarks of this quintessential Swinging Mademoiselle: The disaffected vocal; a hyperactive bubblegum groove; some ridiculously strangulated fuzz-guitar; ding-dong bells; all manner of plinky-plonky percussion; horns a-plenty; a bit at the start of the chorus where she goes "Heh!"; not to mention the kitchen sink... All thrown into the mixing console and stirred up by French pop svengali Germinal Tenas.

I really can't understand why it hasn't already been on any of the umpteen Swinging Mademoiselle/Ultra Chicks/Femmes De Paris/Pop A Paris comps to date... But it's now available to us all on the Born Bad Records released French Swinging Mademoiselle 1967 album, and the CD and LP versions include a full transcript of a candid interview with Élisabeth Beauvais (Clothilde's real name), plus interjections from the aforementioned Mr. Tenas.

Clothilde - La Vérité Toute La Vérité [buy Clothilde - French Swinging Mademoiselle 1967 on CD, LP or all manner of digital formats from Born Bad Records]

Swing when you're winning

On my jaunts around the interweb, I also heard the pitter-patter of Clothilde's mischievous chansons, which have been collected together, in all their Germinal Tenas-produced, intricate glory, for a long-overdue retrospective, French Swinging Mademoiselle 1967, to be released on Born Bad Records (on vinyl and CD if rumours are to be believed) in February or March this year. If you can't wait for the physical release, you can download it in all manner of digital formats from the Born Bad Recs BandCamp page, or you can preview it and buy it via the handy little player below...

Saperlipopette

All day on Saturday and Sunday I had this song going round and round inside my head - an Easter earworm, if you will. Good job it brings a great big Chesire Cat smile to my face whenever I hear it!

I just looked up the lyrics, which seem to be depict a clutch of absurdist anthropomorphic situations: a shrimp finds itself in trouble served up on a plate and just to make his day even worse he has toothache; or a weasel decides she needs a nose-job and opts for a (more Serge-like?) Roman nose; or the doe whose milk turned into cheese...  "SAPERLIPOPETTE!" they each cry in turn.

The term Saperlipopette seems to be an exclamation of surprise. So far I've found it translated as "Gadzooks!" or "Goodness me!" or "Fiddlesticks!" or "Goodness gracious!" and even, as an English translation of Tin Tin has Captain Haddock bellowing, "Blistering Barnacles!". [If anyone out there has a better translation/meaning for the word, please leave a comment and share it with the rest of us. Thanks.]

So, can you resist Germinal Tenas' everything-AND-the-kitchen-sink production and arrangement or Clothilde's butter-wouldn't-melt innocence?

Clothilde - Saperlipopette

[You can buy this song on the recently reissued Femmes de Paris complete box set.  Another Clothilde track is currently available on Girls in the Garage vol.12]

Swingin' Mademoiselles interview Clothilde

The Swingin' Mademoiselles facebook crew have just posted a rare interview with the ultra-mysterious Clothilde - it's a very insightful read, and great to get an insider's view of the French 60s yé-yé scene, particularly as, for once, it's not through rose-tinted John Lennon specs.

You can read the Clothilde interview at the Swingin' Mademoiselles facebook page.