1974 Charles Aznavour: She

I was walking into town on my lunch break a few months ago when I saw a group of teenagers in a huddle. They were poring over a map and one of the girls broke away from the pack, came over to me and said 'Allo, can yoo elp me pleez'? It sounded so damn sexy that my first reaction was to ask her to say it again into my mobile so I could use it for a ringtone. But it also made me think that sometimes stereotypes are stereotypes for good reason. And that's because they're true - I can't deny it, a female French accent has a certain 'je ne sais quoi' that the local girls don't have and it made me rather more willing to help than I usually would be.

I think a similar kind of witchcraft must have been at work in 1974 to take Charles Aznavour and his paean to ideal womanhood to number one. To my mind, 'She' is a song that can be taken as either a pedestal placing act of worship of womanhood, or an ever so slightly patronising and demeaning view of what Charles no doubt views as the 'fairer sex'. "For where she goes I got to be, the meaning of my life is she, she, she" it does appear that Monsieur A is more in love with the idea of love than anything else and he'd be happy with somebody/anybody rather than be on his own: "She may be the beauty or the beast, may be the famine or the feast, may turn each day into heaven or a hell" - doesn't sound like Charles is too choosy does it? Any 'she' will do. As long as it comes with a pair of tits, then he's happy enough.

In all honesty I can't say I've ever 'got' the meaning of this song, but by crooning it in his outrageous French accent, Aznavour provides the veneer of romantic sophistication that stops you peering too closely at the dry rot underneath in the same way a French girl stopping me for directions didn't annoy in the same way it would if anybody else had tried to suck up my time.

If we're playing to stereotypes, then French is the international language (or accent) of love, and Aznavour's trembling lip converts the mutton of the lyrics into lambs and then sets them gambolling over all passing female hearts (after all, it's a song sung by a man and dedicated to women. Or THE woman. Try as I might, I simply can't imagine a bloke getting taken in by all this, unless they were using it as a seduction technique along with the candles and dimmed lights. And what a distressingly oily image that little lot conjures up).

'She' is a confused and soppy piece of work all told, the musical equivalent of picking up a Valentine's Day gift from the 24 hour service station on February 15th. It may well look the part and pluck a few heartstrings at first blush, but anybody with an ounce of nous will see through the smokescreen to the desperation (or the dim schoolgirl who can't read a map) below.