Bénabar – La grande vie

“I’m a sucker for a well-timed tubular bell.”

Tim: Here’s a track from France for you; it’s the third single off somewhat successful singer Bénabar’s album from last year, and is French for “The High Life”. Not sure of the logic of this video, but I can’t find an official one anywhere; I hope you like film clips, though.

Tom: Well, that’s almost certainly an incredible amount of copyright claims waiting to happen right there.

Tim: Good, isn’t it? I’m not completely sure what the song itself is about, as the lyrics seem to get a bit garbled whenever Google Translate gets involved.

Tom: I looked up a previous song of his to see if it was just that he was overly poetic; not so much.

Tim: Hmm, oh dear. This is slightly more pleasant than that – something about a girl who’s used to having lots of fun and multiple lovers but has recently been dumped by someone she loves. The happy and upbeat chorus, meanwhile, serves to remind her that everything will get better and she’ll find someone else just as special soon enough, and the general amount of joy and chiming bells in the chorus pretty much back that up.

Tom: At about the second line, I was convinced that I was going to dislike this as being just a bit mediocre, but you know what? I was very wrong. There’s something about the earnestness in his voice, and about the instrumentation that really sells it. I’m a sucker for a well-timed tubular bell.

Tim: As am I, along with every sensible human being. It’s a standard upbeat chirpy guitar track, and I think it’s nice to listen to – may have been better suited to a late spring release than a winter one, though maybe if he’d waited six months we’d have been all ‘oh, not another one’ so it might be better this way. I’m rambling – basically, it’s a pleasant track. Good.