87. I am the King of the Couch!

87. "Ca Plane Pour Moi" by Plastic Bertrand (kind of)

To get me through the boring, repetitive tasks assigned to me at Boise State, I adopted a strategy of listening to French 80s music. Since I speak very little French, the lyrics didn't distract me, but the upbeat 80s vibe kept my mood up. Funny thing about French music--it always seems to be either really sad or really happy. And the lyrics don't even have to make sense when translated into English either. Random French phrases will do. Also, the lyrics don't have to be actual French words. As long as the words sound French, that's good enough.

Let me show you what I mean. Here's "Foux Du Fafa" by Flight of the Conchords. (Didn't you introduce me to this video? I don't remember.) The lyrics don't make much sense when translated. But I guarantee you'll feel happy at least five-and-a-half times before the end of the song.



Also, if a song is in French, anyone that doesn't speak the language will have no idea if the sound they hear is even your own voice. It could be the voice of someone else, and no one would ever know--unless the guy you hired to sing the song in French decides to take you to court and expose your music fakery.

And that is exactly what happened to Plastic Bertrand, a Belgian singer that Milli-Vanillied his way to a hit by hiring a guy named--and I'm not making this up or misspelling it--Lou Deprijck to sing and produce the song. But after Plastic lip-synced his way to fame and fortune with the song, Lou decided to be a real prijck about it and sued for a chunk of cash and the rights to perform the song.

Much has been made on the interwebs of the meaning of the lyrics of this song, which some translators portray as a nonsense song, while others point out that the French idioms used in the song make complete sense. "Ca plane pour moi" means literally, "It glides for me." But from the research I've done on the lyrics, I believe that the best translation of this French idiomatic phrase would be "I'm going to milk the cow."

I don't care. It sounds French. It makes me happy. Plus, there is an English line in it where he says, "I am the king of the divan." Who doesn't love a song that lets you proclaim "I am the King of the couch?!"



Anyway, this became my favorite song played on the French 80s stations I listened to at Boise State. The only problem I have with it is that it came out in 1977, so it really shouldn't be played on a French 80s station. But hey, that's what punk music was all about, right? Breaking the rules!

And one of the non-rules of punk had to do with "pogoing" on the dance floor. Apparently, dancing like you're an epileptic on a pogo stick was a thing associated with punk or new wave music. (I don't know why I did not know this.) The reason I bring it up is that it might be reason that the audience starts clapping in the middle of the song after Plastic pogos.



Fun Fact: "The Safety Dance" by Men Without Hats was written after the lead singer got kicked out of a Canadian dance club for pogoing. Of course, if you think everyone pogoed like Debra Harry does in the video above, you'd think that it was stupid for the bouncer to kick the dude out. But in the video below, you'll see a more violent form of the pogo. After you see the dancing going on while the Sex Pistol's sing "Anarchy in the UK," you'll probably side with the bouncer.



And now I understand a little better why They Might Be Giants didn't want that kind of dancing going on at their concert. Yikes! (Foux du fafa!)