When I was young we didn’t have money. We used to burn the furniture in the winter to heat up our place. No central heat, no telephone, no shower. We took a shower at a friend’s place, once a week, we paid 10 francs the shower. It was great. We would hang out with the people while we were at it, little by little our tribe would get wet hair.
I mention the money situation because we didn’t have a sound system. We had a little radio, one we found in the trash (we found everything in the trash). It was always tuned on the French talk radio: France Inter. My step dad would comment the ocean weather when it was coming on. He was a fisherman, you see, and if the dips would get bigger than 10 feet, he would start whistling and shake his hand while commenting that it was “going to be shaky out there”.
This was my family in Brittany, that’s the French piece of land facing New York.
To listen to music, we got a little cassette player. The dingiest one, the smallest one. It wasn’t very complicated, it had 6 button: Play, Reverse, Forward, Stop, Record and Eject. That was enough, that was plenty.
I didn’t know any better so it was the best sound system any man could have. I would listen to French singer/songwriters of the 70’s. If you don’t know them, that’s all right. Just know that there is a big tradition of Singer/songwriter in France. The three main one at the time were Leo Ferre, George Brassens and Jacques Brel. My favorite was Brel. It still is today.
