désolé pour hier soir // tryo

So this one time I went to French camp (really) and we could only listen to music in French… or “La Camisa Negra” by Juanes (don’t know why, but okay). I remember this group sticking out in my mind, and an exchange student who stayed with my family later bought me their album.

Wikipedia describes them as politically-charged, humorous (this title means “sorry about last night” in French) and “reggae acoustic”- give it a try. It’s probably good that, at the time,our French skills weren’t good enough to understand most of the lyrics.

This morning, before heading to work, I’m listening to a record entitled “Encore!” by Jacques Brel, a Belgian singer-songwriter. My library was giving away boxes of vinyls the other day, and while there was an absurdly large collection by a clarinetist named Pete Fountain, I found this one in the back of a box. A few of his songs are in Dutch, but most are recorded in French. He’s hugely famous in the French-speaking world and has been covered by a variety of artists, including one of my favorites, Beirut.

Check out:  La Fanette

And here’s David Bowie singing some Brel, as well as a figure skating tribute to Brel performed by Stephane Lambiel.

(via modernhepburn)