Francis Blanche

We remember the actor, the storyteller and the radio man, with the round face of the joker uncle who made France laugh so much in the 50s and 60s with his eternal companion, Pierre Dac. Francis Blanche wrote nearly 400 songs for himself and others, in which a sense of despair ("les Bêtises" or "Ça tourne pas rond dans ma p'tite tête") that his vitriolic humor carefully concealed. In 1943, as a young beginner churning out express fables, he wrote "Débit de lait, débit de l'eau", with Charles Trenet, on a streetcar crossing Brussels. Next came "J'ai de la barbe" and "la Pince à linges" for Les Quatre Barbus, followed by "la Truite de Schubert" and the anti-militarist "Général à vendre" for Les Frères Jacques. Édith Piaf and the Compagnons de la chanson performed "le Prisonnier de la tour", a charming medieval ballad, and Tino Rossi sang "la Chanson aux nuages"..

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