Les sucettes

"Les Sucettes"
Single by Kim Kay
from the album Hits!
Released	2000
Recorded	2000 at Sterman & Cook Studio
Genre	Eurodance
Length	3:26
Label	EMI
Songwriter(s)	Serge Gainsbourg
Producer(s)	Phil Sterman; Lov Cook;
Kim Kay singles chronology
Music video
	"Les Sucettes" on YouTube

"Les Sucettes"
Single by France Gall
Released	March 1966
Label	Philips
Songwriter(s)	Serge Gainsbourg
Music video
	"Les Sucettes" on YouTube

"Les Sucettes" ("Lollipops") is a French pop song written by Serge Gainsbourg and first recorded by France Gall in 1966. One of Gall's biggest hits, it was an unusually risqué song for its time, though in performing it she was unaware of the fact.

Meaning

"Les Sucettes" is, on the surface, a yé-yé-style song about a girl named Annie who likes aniseed-flavoured lollipops; much of the lyrical content plays up the homonyms of "Annie" and "anis" (aniseed).

But Gainsbourg's lyric also contains playful double meanings referring to oral sex, such as a line about barley sugar running down Annie's throat. The very noun for lollypop in French, "sucette", is the substantivised verb "sucer", sucking – so that the title and the refrain ("Annie aime les sucettes", Annie loves lollypops) are far more evocative in French than in the English translation. A possible translation to preserve the innuendo would be "Annie loves suckers". The song also features a direct double entendre, stating that Annie has lollipops "pour quelques pennies" (for a few pennies), which can also be heard as "pour quelques pénis" (for a few penises).

Music video

A film clip for the song was directed by Jean-Christophe Averty for the TV show Au risque de vous plaire. It featured props playing on the sexual references, with lollipops that were somewhat phallic rather than the traditional circle shape, interspersed with cutaways of young women suggestively sucking on lollipops.[1]

Another video was filmed, featuring Gall herself in a schoolgirl uniform inside a house, singing the song.

Reaction

Gall, aged 18, did not understand the double meaning of the song when she recorded it.[2] By Gall's account she did not realize until later why the filming of the clip attracted so many visitors to the set.[1]

She was extremely upset upon finally learning the truth about the song's double meaning — "mortified, hiding herself away for weeks, refusing to face anyone".[3] Gall said that she had sung Gainsbourg's songs "with an innocence of which I'm proud. I was pained to then learn that he had turned the situation to his advantage, mocking me."[4] In a 2001 television interview, Gall said that she felt "betrayed by the adults around me."[1]

Gainsbourg called the song "the most daring song of the century" in an interview with the magazine Rock and Folk.[3]

Covers

Gainsbourg recorded his own version, with a psychedelic arrangement, on the 1969 album Jane Birkin/Serge Gainsbourg.
The song was performed by Luce as a contestant on the eighth season of the French TV singing competition Nouvelle Star in 2010.
The song was covered by the Swedish symphonic metal band Therion in the album Les Fleurs du Mal released in September 2012.

Kim Kay version

Another version of the song was by the Belgian Eurodance singer Kim Kay. It was released in 2000 on EMI as the fourth single and as well as the opening track from her only compilation album, Hits! (2000). It is a Eurodance song that was written by Serge Gainsbourg and produced by Phil Sterman and Lov Cook.

Track listing

No.	Title	Length
1.	"Les Sucettes"	3:26
2.	"Lilali" (mellow mix)	2:50

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gollark: Basically, it always starts "PotatOS", then I have 8102 hardcoded digits of tau (from which it picks a random number of them), *then* a randomly picked word containing "OS", then a non-cryptographic hash of some of the code.

gollark: No, PotatOS uses EXTREME VERSIONING.

gollark: So `0.1251192587.4` for example.

gollark: If I make a rolling release distro, I'll mildly irritate people by listing a version number which is just... the year minus 2020 or something, a counter which increments every time a package updates, and a random number.

References

The Story behind Les Sucettes on YouTube
France Gall biography at RFI Musique Archived 2004-02-06 at the Wayback Machine, accessed 25 June 2007.
Sylvie Simmons, Serge Gainsbourg: A Fistful of Gitanes, ISBN 978-0-306-81183-8, page 44.
Gilles Verlant, Gainsbourg, quoted in Sylvie Simmons, Serge Gainsbourg: A Fistful of Gitanes, ISBN 978-0-306-81183-8, page 44.

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.

[The_Story_behind_Les_Sucettes-1] The Story behind Les Sucettes on YouTube

[2] France Gall biography at RFI Musique Archived 2004-02-06 at the Wayback Machine, accessed 25 June 2007.

[gitanes-3] Sylvie Simmons, Serge Gainsbourg: A Fistful of Gitanes, ISBN 978-0-306-81183-8, page 44.

[4] Gilles Verlant, Gainsbourg, quoted in Sylvie Simmons, Serge Gainsbourg: A Fistful of Gitanes, ISBN 978-0-306-81183-8, page 44.

France Gall
Albums	N'écoute pas les idoles Mes premières vraies vacances Sacré Charlemagne Poupée de cire, poupée de son Baby pop Les Sucettes 1968 France Gall (1973) France Gall (1976) Dancing Disco Paris, France Tout pour la musique Débranche! Babacar Simple je – Débranchée à Bercy France
Singles	"Laisse tomber les filles" "Sacré Charlemagne" "Poupée de cire, poupée de son" "Les sucettes" "Babacar" "Ella, elle l'a" "Évidemment"

Kim Kay
Studio albums	La Vie en lilali
Compilation albums	Hits!
Singles	"Lilali" "Oui oh oui" "Poupée de cire, poupée de son" "Bam bam" "Iniminimanimo" "La Dah-li-danse" "Les Vacances d'été" "Ça plane pour moi" "Les Sucettes"