Oh The Cow! Type Of A Camel! Dept. - C'est The Innocents!

Demonstrating the French shoulder finger-hook (see also below)

For a while, these guys were the best thing you'd hear coming from a Paris radio. The hedonistic cluelessness of the 'eighties was forgotten in the pre-millennial malaise of the 'nineties, but les hexagonistas had at last produced a handful of great pop groups, something they never managed in the 'sixties (which reached them in the 'seventies). You'd hear Fous A Lier everywhere, or if you were lucky, the sublime L'Autre Finistère, and know you were in the presence of something truly special, and as quintessentially Gallic as a Gitanes stuck to the lower lip.

The decades passed - ou indeed sont les neiges d'antan? - and today only two remain [at left - Ed.] to sing the songs of innocence and experience, at a comfortable mid-pace suited to middle age. But the potency of their finest work is a musical madeleine [Fr. young girl - Ed.] to evoke a past you maybe never had. Even if you don't understand the lyric, the emotive heft of songs like L'Autre Finistère can be overwhelming.

Long live Les Innocents!