Illustration a detail from a theater poster, ca. 1935
Françoise Hardy was twenty when she released the Pourtant Tu M'Aimes EP in 1964, one of many EP releases she put out in the early '60s for the Vogue label. Unlike most of the other material she was recording at the time, Françoise only wrote one of the songs on the EP, "Jaloux". The title track was a translation of a Jimmie Cross/Johnny Cole song originally called "I Still Love Him", translated into French by Hardy herself.
Even if it's somewhat inferior to the best of Hardy's own compositions, "Pourtant Tu M'Aimes" is artfully arranged and excellently executed. Starting with a drum flourish and a burst of blurting horns, the song incorporates castanets, warbling strings, and chirpy backing vocalists. It's a playful but more mature sound than found in Hardy's earliest ye-ye singles like "Tous Les Garçons", and she sings the title line in the chorus (which translates as "yet you love me and I can't live without you") in a strangely blank way over and over as the song fades out, making me wonder what secrets a twenty-year-old could possibly have to hide behind such a delivery.
"Pourtant Tu M'Aimes" by Francoise Hardy
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