Pour ce cinquième numéro, nous allons évoquer un chanteur aux yeux polissons et au long … nez de fouine.
You can find a summary in English below.
La pochette de « mon » (en fait il était à ma soeur) exemplaire du 45T (oui le disque est usé, preuve qu’il a été beaucoup écouté!) de Pierre Vassiliu :
La pochette de la version originale de Chico Buarque :
Pour ceux qui voudraient écouter Charlotte en entier, c’est par là
For my Friends who don’t speak French a summary in English. I hope it can help to follow what I say.
The 5th episode evokes a singer with naughty eyes and a long… nose.
– Sample of the cover
Qui c’est celui là ? (« Who is that one? ») is Pierre Vassiliu‘s greatest success, perhaps even the only one of his songs known to the general public.
He began his career in 1962, with the EP la femme du sergent (« the sergeant’s wife »). It put himself in the category of entertaining and even shrewd singers. Many are his songs evoking the pleasures of the flesh: Charlotte in 1963, or Comme j’en ai envie (« As I want ») in 1971 in which he sings « The day of my death, I would like to be surprised in the bed of a girl ».
Listen of his Charlotte to verify that it has nothing to do with the Henri Dès’ Charlotte (which is a song for kids).
- Sample of Charlotte by Pierre Vassiliu (« Yes it’s me, Charlotte/ I’m coming to pick up my panties… »)
On the B side of the single Qui c’est celui là we find the song Film, a wandering in the Bois de Boulogne where « he is still looking for a girl who wants [him] a quarter of an hour ».
Living in Senegal at the end of the 80s where he opened a jazz club and a restaurant in Dakar, Pierre Vassiliu brings together all these passions: music, good food and travel.
It was from Brazil that he brought back (in 1973) the music for Qui c’est celui là
– Sample of the original version
The title of this Brazilian song by Chico Buarque is « Partido alto« , which refers to a type of rhythm used in samba. If the lyrics that Vassiliu wrote plays on the sides dear to the shrewd and nonconformist singer “they love my blond hair and my naughty eyes” but also “it pisses people off when you don’t live like them”, the Brazilian lyrics speak, with humor and tenderness, of the condition of being Brazilian:
“[…] I was born Brazilian
I am from Rio de Janeiro
(…) God gave me a velvet hand / To caress
God gave me a lot of sadness / And a lot of laziness
God gave me long legs / And a lot of mischief
To run behind a balloon / And run away from the police