The exhibition Paris en Chansons is now closed but the interactive map is still on line : http://www.chansons.paris.fr/carto. Dans le cadre de l’exposition, maintenant terminée, Paris en Chansons, une jolie carte interactive des lieux évoqués dans les chansons françaises est en ligne : http://www.chansons.paris.fr/carto.
The French singer Florent Marchet, sometimes compared to Alain Souchon despite their very different universes, likes also to refer to places in his songs. His personal geography is located slightly further south than Souchon’s Sologne. Florent Marchet evokes his natal Berry in Gargilesse, an instrumental that refers to « one of the most beautiful villages in…
After Carthage Salammbô, the TGM (Tunis-Goulette-Marsa) train arrives at Sidi Bou Said station. There is in the village another materialization of fiction, in a minor way compared to Salammbô, more in line with the sky blue house of Le Forestier. The famous song Le café des délices sung by the French singer and actor Patrick…
In the early 70’s, the young Maxime le Forestier, 21, spent a month in a house of San Francisco, experiencing the life of a hippie community. One or two years later, this stay inspired him to write the song San Francisco: « There is a sky blue house/Built right up against the hill/ They all come…
The subway is an important part of Paris urban landscape. It inspired many French song-writers, as shown in a compilation that can be heard on Amazon. There is even a sub-genre of the metropolitan song that is based on a constraint: tell a sex story through a series of puns with the names of metro…
Released in 2003, Greendale is a concept album by Neil Young & Crazy Horse, which tells the story of a family facing a murder in the small town of Greendale (a fictional California seaside town). The album cover shows a map of the city. Complementary to the album, a website uses the same map to…
(e)space & fiction 