I’ve had a long running love affair with music which lyrically I don’t understand. That is not to say that the opaqueness of the lyrics puzzles me happy, as say with the largely meaningless refrains of Radiohead’s Amnesiac, but rather because they’re in French. I studied the French language from the age of 6 ‘til I was 16. I understand very very little of it, despite this, largely because I’m stupid.

However I love French music. Every kind of it. Nearly. I can’t stand soft rock. Bands like Le Rue Kétanou I love, spiraling gypsy brilliance with lyrics about freedom and bohemian lifestyle that thankfully I can’t understand because I’m fairly sure that their hippy insufferablility would ruin it for me. I love the flow and rhythm of Saïan Supa Crew, but their lyrics which their website tells me are about racism and drug use, religious violence and suicide, are also in French. Again bonus.

This might strike you as desperately stupid, and it probably is, as I certainly am. I just really enjoy the sounds and rhythms without being burdened with meaning, which I then have to engage with, and agree with or disagree with, and it takes some of the relaxation away from me.

Happy Valentines Day. Otherwise read this.

Andrew Booth is an intercontinental dandy. He is co-writing his first novel Jackdaw Fool.
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