Françoise Hardy - La Question

When Françoise Hardy passed away last month, I must admit my knowledge of her work was limited to her canonical “Tous les garçons et les filles”, first heard in French class when I was 13 years old, and “Comment te dire adieu”.

As much as I appreciated these two airy songs evoking sepia images of a pre-tourism-boom Paris, I had no idea about the cultural context that gave rise to these songs and their counterparts like France Gall’s “Poupee de cire poupee de son”.

So I was thankful to The Guardian’s Alexis Petridis, who wrote an excellent obituary describing Hardy’s life and work and the environment in which she managed to carve out her own niche.

Thanks to his piece I got acquainted with the Listenings pick of this week, her ‘71 album ‘La Question’. It’s a slightly psychedelic, sultry and beautiful album with bossanova influences eliciting a dreamy flow - perfect for a weekend morning like this one.

~Camiel

Check out the album on Spotify

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