Apr 25, 2014

113/917 Rachel: Le chant de Mallory (France 1964)

As I've told couple of times earlier, André Popp is one of my favourite songwriters ever to take part in the Eurovision Song Contest. And his entry in 1964, the 113th song ever to take part in the contest was one of his great entries.


Chant de Mallory is a very traditional French love song that there was abundance of during the first decade of the Eurovision Song Contest. Somehow the song written by the same team (Popp and the lyricist Pierre Cour) as the 1961 winner Tom Pillibi and the 1967 evergreen L'amour est bleu manages to rise above the others.

I find the song touching and the arrangement makes it go forward even when the melody repeats the same verse. The song's success (4th in the final results) is partly due to the faultless and sincere delivery of the singer Rachel (no video recording of the 1964 contest exists, but she can be seen singing the song here). I think that this song is an example of a conventional French eurovision ballad at its best.

Chant de Mallory became the biggest hit of Rachel's career. She did record some other singles during the 1960's but apparently her singing career did not carry her to the 1970's. Pity.

My points 4/5.

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