The Colette Magny version

I’ve been trolling YouTube again for “SJI” artifacts, and have a few to lay on you, the mysterious reader, over the course of the next week or so.

First up is a singer who is also mysterious, at least to me. I burned up some time Googling Colette Magny, and mostly found myself on sites written in French, of which I understand roughly nothing. By way of Google’s “translate this” feature, I offer you the following from the French version of Wikipedia:

Colette Magny, born October 31, 1926 in Paris and deceased June 12, 1997 with Villefranche-of-Rouergue (Aveyron), is a French singer and song writer and performer. By its pace, its style, its texts rebellious and its engagements, Colette Magny are a singular character of the contemporary song. Too much often forsaken by the media, it found notoriety, in the years 1960, with a repertory often inspired by the blues and especially thanks to its song with success, Melocoton (1963). Pressing its serious voice on engaged texts, it was very often concerned with the problems of this world (album Vietnam 67 for example).

A concert hall in the 1st district of Lyon bears its name.

Okay! In this clip, then, Colette Magny presses its serious voice on my favorite engaged text, one concerned with the problems of this world, and the next. It’s apparently from a French TV show, early 1960s I’m guessing.

It’s actually a pretty pleasing version, all in all. Magny has a rich voice, and the young studio audience — inexplicably all wearing suits — accompany with groovy finger snaps. There’ s a brief interview afterward, which I can’t make out a word of. Well maybe one word: “Oklahoma,” I think, which is followed by laughter.