Intro Song

Si tu vois ma mere - slow // Sidney Bechet

Welcome to a very special episode of Continental Drift! This episode marks the first time both Kirby and Carolyne will be hosting the show together, and what better way to usher in Carolyne's arrival with this episode's featured country: FRANCE!!!! You can find the playlist here and listen back to the episode here!

France…or the French Republic is a country located in Western Europe with a population of over 68 million people. It is the 23rd most populated country in the world. Besides mainland France, France also includes overseas territories in the Americas and the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian oceans as well. This makes it one of the largest discontiguous exclusive economic zones in the world.

The official language of France is…you guessed it, French, which is spoken natively by 220 million people around the globe. And fun fact! Continental Drift’s previous host, Elizabeth, is fluent in French! So if she were here, she’d definitely be pronouncing the episode's song titles much better than us non-Francophones back here.

When it comes to music, France is known for its diverse array of music styles. Not only is it home to many famous classical composers like Claude Debussy or Maurice Ravel, but some of its other popular styles include chanson, cabaret, and electronic.

So, without further ado, our first track is "L’amour est un oiseau rebelle" (also known as "Habanera"), the famous aria from Georges Bizet’s 1875 opera-comique Carmen. The opera-comique genre is characterized by its inclusion of both spoken dialogue and arias, which separates it from a lot of others (which only include sung dialogue), so once again, here is "L’amour est un oiseau rebelle”

Track 1: L’amour est un oiseau rebelle” (pronounced “et uuh”) - Georges Bizet

Track 2: 2 Arabesques: Arabesque No. 1 - Claude Debussy (François-Joël Thiollier)

Claude Debussy was a classical composer and the progenitor of the Impressionist music style (which arose in the late 19th century). This style features fluidity/lack of a rhythmic pulse, ethereal melodies, and focused more on mood and atmosphere (much like the impressionist paintings of Claude Monet).

Moving away from Classical opera and music, our next track is by one of France’s most notable singers…Edith Piaf.

La Foule (or “The Crowd”) was originally composed by Angel Cabral in 1936 and recorded in Spanish by many artists as a Peruvian waltz. One day, Piaf was touring in Buenos Aires when she heard it and decided to write and record the song in French. It became a huge hit and soon repopularized the original version in Spanish. To this day, it’s still a very iconic song.

Track 3: La Foule - Edith Piaf

Now, we continue on to our film portion of this evening. France is best known in the film world for its New Wave movement in the late 1950s which promoted experimentation with visual style, existential themes, and political commentary. Next we will feature 2 songs from one of the most iconic films of the New Wave Era and of all time: Breathless by Jean-Luc Godard (don’t pronounce ‘d’)...if you haven’t seen this film, you definitely should! After these are tracks from another film, Daughters of Darkness.

Track 4: New York Herald Tribune - Martial Solal

Track 5: Theme d’amor - Martial Solal

Track 6: Daughters of Darkness Opening - Fracois de Roubaix

Track 7: Les Levres Rouges - Fracois de Roubaix

The last two tracks from this past segment are featured in the 1971 horror film Daughters of Darkness. The composer, François de Roubaix, was seen as a precursor of French electronic music, with his heavy use of synths and drum machines. His music is still having an impact today, being sampled by some modern hip-hop artists like Ice-T and Lil Wayne.

Continuing with the New Wave theme, our next few tracks will feature some New Wave and Europop, with our next track being a song by France’s largest New Wave band, Indochine. “Canary Bay” brought Indochine a lot of commercial success in both Europe and Latin America and is a staple of every French New Wave playlist. After this, we’ll branch into more Europop with "Désenchantée" by Mylene Farmer.

Track 8: Canary Bay - Indochine

Track 9: Désenchantée - Mylene Farmer

French House Music is a form of Euro disco that came about in the ‘90s and early 2000s in France and was popularized in European clubs. Its defining characteristics are filter and phaser effects, 4-4 time, and about 120 beats per minute. It’s gained global popularity through famous acts like Daft Punk and David Guetta. 

Track 10: Face to Face - Daft Punk

Track 11: Hello Inc - Alex Gopher (feat. Saint-Michel)

What would a W-R-E-K show be without its indie music?!? Up next, we’re going to feature some breakthrough indie acts from France that have reached across the ocean to American audiences. You may even recognize one of our next two tracks: Midnight City by M83 (which is a quintessential early 2000s indie track and car-commercial favorite).

Track 12: Midnight City - M83

Track 13: Elle ne t’aime pas - La Femme

French psych-punk rock band. Uses a lot of synth and mixes elements of punk, yé -yé , and cold wave.

The last track of that segment was “Elle ne t’aime pas” by La Femme, which is a great band with a lot of French and Spanish-language music. If you like what you heard, feel free to check out some more of their discography. It’s amazing, highly recommend it.

Last up, for our cinephiles out there, is “La valse d’Amelie” by Yann Tierson…a famous track from the 2002 hit film, Amelie, followed by "Tous les garçons et les filles" by Françoise Hardy, which has appeared in a number of films since the late '90s.

Track 14: La valse d’Amelie - Yann Tierson

Track 15: Tous les garçons et les filles - Françoise Hardy