LA PLAGE - “Coupe De Boule”
Ages ago on the lamented MP3 blog POPNOSE I wrote about how soca’s greatness lay - partly - in how omnivorous it is, subject-wise. Like the calypso it sprang from, anything from arthritis to trade policies makes fine raw material for soca acts. So when I read that somebody had written and recorded - in three days - a song about the World Cup Final and Zidane’s headbutt, I shouldn’t have been surprised to download it and hear soca rhythms.*
“Couple De Boule” - hear it on La Plage’s website - is super timely and it’s also infectious pop. I don’t speak French well; as far as I can tell, the chorus runs something like “The Italian gives it some / Zidane nuts him”. If that was all there was to it, it would be a fun novelty - the factor that transforms it into an actually great football record is how La Plage can’t forget that there was a match around the headbutt, and that the outcome - from their point of view - hurt. The song ends with no mention of Zidane, just a despair-filled “Trezeguet, Trezeguet, Trezeguet” - which needs no translation.
*of course the whole system of riddims and versions makes this kind of rapid-response pop more possible.
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FT's Alan on August 1st, 2006
bbc news story
“The African-style song has become a tube de l’été (summer hit) in France, booming out at beaches, campsites and bars.”
Mark C on August 13th, 2006
Madchen, stet, Lara, sgs and I listened to this pretty much on repeat during our French sojourn last week - you’ve not heard laughter until you’ve heard Lucy explode on first hearing “Trezeguet, gay, gay, gay”…
Katherine on September 9th, 2006
Ummm, if you didn’t know, Trezeguet is one of the french soccer players’ names. He missed the winning goal. It is not “Gay” It’s his name. If you understood a bit of French, you’d probably know that.
Joe on March 19th, 2008