I have lived my life to its fullest and can have no regrets. I know this because whilst not quite being the millionaire industrialist, gambler and playboy I once aspired to be, I can sing along to Plastic Bertrand Ça Plane Pour Moi word perfectly in the original Franglais Belgique, as ’twere.
A contender for both the best novelty song ever as well as the least authentic punk track ever conceived, ‘Ça Plane Pour Moi’ is exactly the sort of thing we should be putting onto space probes hurled into the dark void of the infinite, to alert other intelligences to all we can achieve as a species**. In a just world it would be the uncontested anthem for Earth.
I am only being slightly unserious here.
I have never quite managed to pull off the whole po-faced muso rocker thang, I like pop music far too much and stripped of its utterly nonsensical punk trappings, ‘Ça Plane Pour Moi’ is pure pop; lyrics that border on the gibberish even/particularly for a French speaker, dayglo chirpiness and a wonderful, rock-solid catchiness.
Sacré bleu its fun!
Plastic Bertrand, better known to his mère as Roger François Jouret, is credited as performer of ‘Ça Plane Pour Moi’, rather oddly as he neither wrote nor sang the track, just fronted it.
The track was written and sung by a Belgian producer with the astonishingly punk-sounding-but-real-name of Lou Deprijck. This total Walloon recorded the backing track with session musicians, banged on the vocals with some bonus ‘a-woo-hoo-hoos’ and c’est la vie.
What may come as a shock to some in the faux-punk Belgian fan community is that before being accompanied by nonsense lyrics the very same backing track was used, courtesy of Mr Deprijck, to soundtrack a very different song indeed.
Elton Motello Jet Boy, Jet Girl is an astonishing thing to hear after years of Plastic Bertrand Standom. This song is about the feelings of a 15-year old boy after an older man he was having a sexual affair with finds love with a woman^.
Explicit in its depiction of underage gay sex by today’s standards, let alone those of 1977^^, ‘Jet Boy, Jet Girl’ with its ‘he gave me head’ hook to the chorus must have landed like a manatee when it was released. The only territory it was remotely successful was Australia and the only place the band had any other traction was Canada. I salute you both.
At 7 minutes long it is a helluva song, at times singer Alan Ward gives it to us blank-eyed, angry and raunchy, often within the same couplet. My copy only arrived from Canada last week and I haven’t quite mastered all the lyrics yet, I will do though, could be handy for the office karaoke Christmas party.
Jet Boy, Jet Girl gained a later half-life as a much covered song in the gay community, predominantly in the US and has acquired a definite cachet as a result. If punk meant anything it was as a disturbance to the norms and established order, by this measure this is a very punk song indeed.
So as I bought Jet Boy, Jet Girl I also noticed the seller on Discogs had one of my very favourite 80’s pop tunes for sale on 12″ too, Toni Basil Mickey. A song I have loved for 40+ years now*^ based on a damned good tune and pre-adolescent stirrings caused by the video of blessed memory.
I was astonished to learn that the band featured on Mickey and Toni Basil’s LP was pretty much Devo, with some Atomic Rooster input too. It was also a revelation looking up everything Toni B had done in her career, some astonishing stuff in there, including acting in one of my very fave films ever, Five Easy Pieces and choreographing on American Graffiti.
II have really enjoyed playing Mickey, practising my slightly stompy dance routine to it in the privacy of my own kitchen. I had no idea it was a gender-swopped cover of a Chapman/Chinn tune ‘Kitty’, originally released by Racey***. Which is what led to the urban/cultural myth that the song was obscene.
The story went that in the lyrics of the song Ms Basil was, how to put this gently, umm, asking for it up the exhaust pipe. The theory further went that this was to tempt a lover, who was more same-sex orientated^^^.
Now when you take me by the, who's ever gonna know Every time you move, I let a little more show There's something you can use, so don't say no, Mickey So come on and give it to me anyway you can Anyway you want to do it, I'll take it like a man Oh please baby, please don't leave me in this jam Mickey
Ms Basil, denies this interpretation vehemently, although I personally think its a little more playful and ambiguous than that, which is surely just another reason to like and admire this track.
Thank you for sticking with me so far, for this long, wordy trawl through my seamy vinyl demi monde. I really do simply love all three records here.
More wholesome fare coming soon!
1195 Down
PS: This is a treat.
*the all-powerful all-knowing 1537 reserves the right to change his mind on this point at a later date.
**note to self: check Belgians qualify before publishing post.
^on a more serious sociocultural note to a modern listener it is striking how little taboo seems to have been culturally popularly attached to sex with underage participants at the time. Try releasing Jet Boy, Jet Girl now and see what happens to the windows of your house^*
^^I have a couple of singles by, the much later, Pansy Division which are the only records I have that come close.
^*See also various very mainstream records about young girls and Silverhead 16 And Savaged, an LP I don’t yet know how to write about, or indeed whether I ever should.
*^Christ I’m old!
***link to my beloved Uncle Ali, after their fame one of the guys from Racey (who hailed from Weston-Super-Mare) worked as a plasterer on a building site and all the lads apparently used to sing ‘some plasterers do and some plasterers don’t‘ to him.
^^^basically along the same lines as the same year’s ‘Johnny Are You Queer?’ by Josie Cotton, which is a whole other story.