Your Messed Up Life Still Thrills Me

Of all the French chanteuse of the 60's, Francoise Hardy is my favorite for several reasons. The most honest one being that I think she's arguably the most beautiful girl to have ever lived. Even now at the age of 66, she's still gorgeous. Secondly, she was a musician more than an actress or model. She could've easily focused on either of those occupations, like many of her contemporaries, but she stuck with music as her main outlet and continued making records long after Bardot, Gall, Birkin and the like. Third, she was the classiest of all the pop-singers of the time. She was hardly ever hamming it up for the camera or baring cleavage to sell records, and her fashion sense is still unrivaled. And lastly, because she was the most mysterious of the French singers. She didn't over-indulge and become a burnout, she didn't let ego get to her head and spout off as if she was a Goddess, and she didn't make any career ending mistakes. She stayed herself, or so it seems from an outsider perspective. It's this combination of characteristics that gained her so many esteemed admirers, from Bob Dylan, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Nick Drake and nearly every male French sensation.

So here's a pictorial ode to Francoise Hardy. My greatest historical crush from an era I wasn't alive to bare witness to. Le sigh!

Now when Hardy originally burst onto the scene, she was presented another bubble-gum pop artist. Her first few records, while good and fun, weren't the most original of her career. If you're new to her, a great starting point happens is the 1970 album La Question. It features about half a dozen songs penned by Hardy herself, and the other half with her songwriting partners. La Question is a really stripped-down album, featuring mostly just acoustic guitar and vocals with some modest bells and whistles. Hardy's vocals are lulled into your ear, making it a pretty ambient run with a hushed, sultry quality.

(La Question album cover)

La Question also happens to be the first Hardy album I ever purchased. I was working at a used CD store in Costa Mesa at the time, and a copy came in while I was at the counter. I remember just being struck by the cover art, which is just a great black and white photo of her leaning her head back, and deciding on the spot I was going to purchase it. It was an admitted instance of judging an album by its cover. Although, considering all her album covers feature her on the cover, I still feel a bit lucky I got started on the right one. Any of the below could've equally seduced me.












And lastly, I leave you with this video from her 1964 album Mon Amie La Rose. It's for the title-track off the album, and if watching it doesn't speed up your heart-rate (guys and girls), you may very well be dead.