Being older and being “physically” attracted to Alizée - Page 18

OGRE · #**171** 03-18-2011, 06:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AceTone

Trick question....

Nice pun.

User22 · #**172** 03-18-2011, 08:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bigdan

At least you confess... you're NOT OLD !! I suspected this kind of betrayal from you...

It's true, I'm not old so I don't have your guys temptations haha. But yeah...I'm leaving this thread now for good haha.

Deepwaters · #**173** 03-18-2011, 08:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AceTone

Also, if you want to stop a woman's advances ... marry her.

I'm happy to say that didn't work for me. It was one of the few good things about my marriage.

FanDeAliFee · #**174** 03-27-2011, 02:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Corsaire

...French pop culture is well known for having young female singers using lyrics that have several meanings (and often a sexual connotation) and MF is not the first, neither the best at this. The classical example is "Les sucettes" (The Lollipops) written by Gainsbourg for France Gall...

The story behind Les sucettes (1966) is told in the following video, with English captions.

What I wonder is whether Gainsbourg had first heard the American song My Boy Loll(y/i)pop. When Millie Small (then age 17) recorded it, the song became the first international hit of the Ska genre. Over 7 million copies were sold - more than Moi... Lolita! It reached #2 in the UK - not all that far from France! Millie's 1964 performance on Finnish television follows.

The song is actually older yet. It was first recorded by Barbie Gaye way back during 1956, in R&B style. Her performance follows.

I never had read that anyone gave My Boy Lollipop the tacit interpretation I offer now - until today. But *I* used its melody in MIDI form for a Web page satire I published in the late 1990s about Bill Clinton's relationship with Monica Lewinsky!

And now I have exhumed yet another clandestinely suggestive "lollipop" song buried deep within my memory. SO deep that I had never before connected it with oral sex - which evidently I had learned about only after actively recalling the song existed! It is simply called Lollipop and makes highly redundant use of the title word by frequently repeating the phrase Lollipop lollipop oh lolli lolli lolli. (Sorry, Chuck.) You can watch a 1958 performance (I was only 3 years old then) below featuring The Chordettes, with Andy Williams providing the comedic backup antics. (You will recall that a few years later Williams would meet and marry Claudine Longet, a thread about whom I have originated and lovingly tended here, as an example of a French songtress who succeeded in America.) In the present video, Claudine's famous American Andy W is just this side of the line in starring in a film made by the other famous American Andy W of that era, Alizée's "friend" Andy Warhol.

Appreciate that the captions in the video above are frequently incorrect. The correct lyrics of Lollipop include the following telling phrases:
<ul>
<li>Call my baby lollipop - tell you why

<li>Sweeter than candy on a stick

<li>Crazy way he thrills me... (In 1958, fellatio was legally/morally/psychologically deviant, i.e. crazy.)

<li>If you have a choice to be your pick / But lollipop is mine (The word pick rhymes with prick, slang meaning penis.)</ul>
The original performance, produced by co-writer Julius Dixson, was recorded in 1957, two years after the novel Lolita was published in Paris. The performance of the song played above was recorded and released in 1958, the same year as Lolita was published in New York. (The relevance of these temporal coincidences is briefly examined below.) Question: Was Barbie Gaye's 1956 version of My Boy Lollypop well enough known that Lollipop is obviously derivative?

Perhaps some of you reading this will agree with me that Serge's song is in fact enormously subtle compared to the two older American songs above - notwithstanding his pun using the word orge (barley), which sounds like orgie (orgy).

I will take this appropriate occasion to record the etymology of the word lollipop (which anglophones also less commonly also call a sucker):1784, lolly-pops "sweetmeats, soft candy," perhaps related to loll "to dangle" (the tongue) + pop "strike, slap." Or the first element may be northern dial. lolly "the tongue." Meaning "hard candy on a stick" is from 1920s.
Note that the loll part seems to be onomatopoeiac. (The way in which the tongue is used to make the lala sound so common in music is exploited for the sake of shock in the final portion of the very rude song here.) The pop part also most frequently designates a word bearing an onomatopoeiac meaning, namely <i>to make a short, quick, explosive sound</i>. Doesn't the combination of licking and exploding, when it refers to an object you repeatedly insert and remove from your mouth, almost BEG for a comparison to fellatio?

And if that isn't sexual enough, an informal meaning of pop (origin 1820–30) in English - which came from French through poppa (origin 1765–75) and papa (origin 1675–85) - designates someone of the male sex (namely a father).

BTW, in the late 1970's, a lollipop whose center was a piece of bubblegum was introduced to the US market. Called Blowpops, I didn't deem its television ads any more salacious than for those of any other lollipop. But a fellow university student, who pointed out the obvious fact that blow has the informal meaning of fellatio, insisted the product branding was deviously suggestive.

Observe that words (including personal names) with multiple letter L's like Lolita, Lola and Lili each remind one of all the various activities a person can undertake by articulating the tongue - not excluding the sexual ones. (Among flowers, the particular visual resemblance of the lily to human female genitals only reinforces the sexuality of the L sound to the anglophone ear.) In show business history, Alizée was hardly the first entertainer who undertook some sexy role using one or more of the aforementioned names!

And because we believe the very young are especially predisposed to seek out sugar, including the concentrated form called candy, the food which anglophones call the lollipop, because of its erotic symbolism as discussed above, is the consumable most symbolic of precocious sexuality. Thus a personal name which sounds like lollipop is highly evocative of such precocious sexuality to the anglophone ear. What better name could Nabokov have fashioned for his protagonist than Lolita?

<table width="600" align="center"><tr><td>
<big><big>The canonical "heart" shape associated with Valentine's Day has a highly erotic symbolism of its own, discussed at length <a href="http://bellsouthpwp.net/d/o/docdtv/Alizee/SexSymbolism/">here</a>.</big></big></td></tr></table>

<table align="center" cellpadding="10" border="3"><tr><td><big><big><big>Je comprends tous les succès
Des refrains made in U.S.A.
Mais j’ai une attirance
Pour les chansons made in France</big></big></big><blockquote>- <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ry881ucELd4">Made In France</a> (<a href="http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mireille_Mathieu">1985</a>) par Mireille Mathieu</blockquote><hr>Personal note:
In 1985 I watched a Provençal girl her friends call <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mireille_Mathieu"><i>Mimi</i></a>
perform - including a Liza Minelli song - at the spectacular
(and then-new) <a href="http://en.sportingmontecarlo.com/Salle-des-Etoiles,850.html"><i>Salle des Etoiles</i></a> at Monaco's <i>Le Sportif</i>.</td></tr></table>

Postscript: Readers who aspire to discover yet other hidden meanings in songs about lollipops can research the additional songs indexed here.

FanDeAliFee · #**175** 04-03-2011, 08:05 PM

Gainsbourg's "Pauvre Lola" as antecedent to "Moi... Lolita"

With about 200,000 forum posts on this Web site, I am ASTONISHED that NONE of them bears witness to a VITAL artistic antecedent of Alizée's iconic song Moi... Lolita! The closest one comes to it is tangential mention of the work in question, Serge Gainsbourg's Pauvre Lola, in a post made by BlackAnthem last year quoting a report on Jane Birkin's visit to Washington, DC. (And then requoted at AAm in another post by Fall06.)

Before I address the main issue, I want to personally confront the claim made in the aforementioned report that "Birkin never found fame in the States." As I detailed in my post last year titled You never forget your first song?, Birkin's voice is indelibly etched in my brain because, quoting me:

I've heard Jane Birkin have an orgasm more often than all the American girls I've known put together.

This is on account of Serge Gainsbourg's infamous 1969 duo with her, Je t'aime... moi non plus.

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Ironically enough, the melody of this highly erotic Gainsbourg classic is so soothing that an instrumental version has by now long been a staple of the blasé background music you hear all the time in places like elevators!

I briefly profile the brilliant and controversial Serge Gainsbourg at Speaking of iconoclastic..., wherein I write:

My, my, my... just think how boringly sweet Mylène Farmer songs might have been had she not grown up with the chance to hear Serge Gainsbourg songs!

Anyway, back to Pauvre Lola, which became famous when Gainsbourg performed this song, using young France Gall's laughter - rather than her talented singing voice - in a brilliant dramatic and instrumental manner.

When I wrote the statement above about Mylène Farmer, I did not know I would be telling you now that 2000's Moi... Lolita is not a little bit of an homage to 1964's Pauvre Lola! Before I prove my point, why not watch the performance here?

Even if you do not know French, the flower in 17-year-old Gall's hair is a clue. The 36-year-old Gainsbourg would like to gently relieve her of one, to write symbolically. The French Wikipedia article on the song provides extensive commentary on it. It asserts (translating) that:

Gainsbourg was inspired, even obsessed, with "Lolita," Vladimir Nabokov's novel adapted for film by Stanley Kubrick. Barely finished with his previous album, Serge constantly stated that "No, nothing will have the better of me, I'll search for my Lolita, in yé-yé [60s pop] music." From there, this theme is implicit in all his work, the climax being "Histoire de Melody Nelson." [A project with the aforementioned Jane Birkin.]

The article fashions Gainsbourg in the role of Humbert and Gall in that of Lolita in the song. Naturally, this takes considerable liberties with the details of Nabokov, because as the novel opens, while Humbert is 37, Lolita is a mere 12. This already creates a precedent of artistic license for setting the age of Farmer's own Lolita, who will be 16.

Here is a quick and dirty translation of the lyrics. (I will happily credit improvements offered by our able francophone friends here.)

Need to know how to expand
Without spilling
Poor Lola
Need to know how to expand
Without spilling
It's delicate

Not the surprise
Not the undertaking
Poor Lola
Not the surprise
Not the undertaking
The goal [/Debut] below

It is the tender words
She loves to hear
Tender Lola
Yes a few soft words
Should soft-
en Lolita

What would it take
That will depend on
Poor Lola
What would it take
That will depend on
A little about yourself

It may take you
You have to worry
Considering Lola
We cannot take you
Until the Greek
Kalends Lola

Linguistic note: The Latin phrase AD CALENDAS GRAECAS, in English, on the Greek Calends means never, because the Greek method of keeping track of the days did not include a Calends. (We also get calendar from this word.)

The Farmer song owes quite a number of things to the Gainsbourg song, notwithstanding the immense differences in musical style and dramatic situation.

First, is the allusion to the Nabokov character, two of whose names, Lola and Lolita, the two songs both cite. Next is the point that Lolita laughs, manifestly so in the Gainsbourg song, and by her own report in the Farmer song. Both songs reference Lolita's lower parts with the word bas - Gainsbourg puns about its debut, while Farmer plays at suggesting it is inexperienced (Collégienne). Gainsbourg writes about avoiding a spill, while Farmer writes about how the others spurt on Lolita. Finally, Gainsbourg writes how his Lola is pauvre (unfortunate), while Farmer begins her melody with sad musical measures.

Needless to say, Farmer adds many wonderful things to her song which have no precedent at all in the Gainsbourg work, including many clever puns. But she may also make one final Gainsbourg reference when she spells out the name Lolita. It is not to Pauvre Lola, but to a lesser-known work from 1963, Elaeudanla Téïtéïa, a song which celebrates the name Laetitia.

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Aldighieri · #**176** 07-15-2011, 08:47 PM

Nice contribute..and thanks, it's good to talk about that stuff with adult persons. I like here being so much "old" men fans about her. Is often hard to discuss this things in a serious way with teenagers( the 90% web users are...).

Azhiri · #**177** 07-15-2011, 11:43 PM

I think you'll see a lot of that here. We have several "older" members, with teenagers too (I'm 15

) but we're all pretty mature for our age.

Bigdan · #**178** 07-16-2011, 06:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FanDeAliFee

[INDENT]Gainsbourg was inspired, even obsessed, with "Lolita," Vladimir Nabokov's novel adapted for film by Stanley Kubrick.
From there, this theme is implicit in all his work, the climax being "Histoire de Melody Nelson." [A project with the aforementioned Jane Birkin.]

But she may also make one final Gainsbourg reference when she spells out the name Lolita. It is not to Pauvre Lola, but to a lesser-known work from 1963, Elaeudanla Téïtéïa, a song which celebrates the name Laetitia.

As you mention it Here is the first french Lolita in music history...

Melody Nelson.

For me, Mylène was more inspired by the novel, like Gaingsbourg, than by Melody Nelson, but, a thing is sure : when I first heard Moi, Lolita, the spelling of LOLITA remind me instantaneously the way Gainsbourg play with LAETITIA name. This is a clear reference , actually.

Edcognito · #**179** 07-25-2011, 04:29 AM

Talk about a thread making a fantastic recovery!

Been awhile since the last time i was here, missed some good stuff, glad I came back and found it!

Ed

FanDeAliFee · #**180** 07-25-2011, 04:44 PM

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