Daily Jam - Jeanne

Oh how my heart beats for Francoise Hardy, French chanteuse of the 1960’s, former pop music and fashion icon, the Yeh-Yeh girl from Paris. Her impressive early catalog trades in folk, pop, British Beat, and a slew of other genres and influences sung in French, English, German, Italian, and more over the course of dozens of albums. Funny that I had no idea who she was until listening to fellow Frenchmen Air and their collaborative effort with Hardy called “Jeanne,” which appeared as a B-side on the single to “Sexy Boy” in 1998. The song is spacey, and haunting, and gorgeous, and it sent me on a path to discover the further works of Mlle Hardy, as well as the many other wonderful artists contributing to the 60’s French pop scene.

I’ve had a soft spot for French music ever since.

I’ve written at length in the past about songs and albums that can transport you back to a particular time in your life, a nostalgia trip in audio pill form. “Jeanne” is certainly one of those songs for me. Just hearing the wistful acoustic guitar, the soothing tones of the synthesizer, and Hardy’s ghostly vocals takes me back to my freshman year of college. The song paints such a vivid picture of that time in my mind’s eye, that a whole sea of memories, feelings, stories, and emotions can come flooding into my head, leaving me wading through the history of a teenage version of myself, who to some degree, does not exist anymore. It causes a homesick kind of feeling. It makes me feel all too mortal. What if we could remember what we thought the future would be like? This song haunts me.

Check it out below, our Daily Jam.