http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLyktZ1RopI
HAPLESS mirror-shaded Gallic ‘soft-synth’ rumination on the difficulty of expressing emotion through the medium of, well, ‘words’. They don’t come easy, apparently. Seemingly taken a lot more seriously on the continent – witness his track-long miming on a white Stratocaster despite there being barely any guitar to speak of, and his positioning in front of a psychedelic backdrop (doubtless the result of someone, as Europeans are wont to do, declaring that it sounded ‘just like The Beatles’) – but embraced over here (via exposure on a short-lived Top Of The Pops ‘Euro’ slot) for endearing hopelessness to near-chart-topping extremes, memorably dubbed ‘The Multi-Talented FR David’ by John Peel, and equally memorably given nought out of ten in a Smash Hits album review. Follow up single, Music (which, it should be noted, he had already claimed did come easy to him), predictably flopped, but we will never forget.
Applemask
September 14, 2009 at 12:18 pm
Actually a Frenchman.
Toddy Pipkins
September 15, 2009 at 4:34 pm
Is that not what “Gallic” invariably means?
Brian Rowland
October 13, 2009 at 2:50 pm
A Smash Hits letter-writer also pointed out that David’s singing voice bore a striking similarity to the voice of Secret Squirrel’s sidekick, Morocco Mole.
Richard Davies
August 12, 2010 at 5:14 pm
My Dad has a compilation of 1 hit wonders (used very loosely) which features this & I Am The Beat.
Glenn A
August 13, 2012 at 10:35 pm
Surely those of us of a certain age can remember about ten years earlier when Gilbert Becaud scored a big hit with A Little Love and Understanding, sung in a rather comical French accent with an orchestral backing. I am ze voice on your transistor radio, ho, ho, ho.
Morgan
August 25, 2014 at 3:13 pm
Always known as the Constipation Song in our house “….turds don’t come easy to me.” I’m here all week ladies and gentlemen, no really, I am.