Gotta Hear This #12

France wasn't particularly big into punk rock bands. Yes I know there were minor legends like Métal Urbain and Stinky Toys, and you must remember that Plastic Bertrand and his peppy 'Ca Plane Pour Moi' had shipped out of Belgium. However there were some bands that sneaked in the back door with their skinny ties and new wave accoutrements. Which I guess is where Téléphone made that call.

I can't say I'm an expert on their oeuvre, but I did hear one particular song about a thousand times. It was called 'Cendrillon' and it appeared on the fourth album, 'Dure Limite'. The song was punk rock in the way that Cyndi Lauper was, or maybe The Cars. Which is to say that it was delivered by people with unacceptable hairstyles and large studio budgets.

But still I grew to like the record. It was a slightly poignant spin on the Cinders fairytale. In this version, the girl becomes wizened and drunk, turning tricks and lamenting her lost moment. There's a lyrical quiver at the end when the authors (Jean-Louis Aubert and Louis Bertignac) turn some of the blame on the self-absorbed parents.

The ending is a feeble cop-out, but it's the tone of the song that got to me. A bit of melancholia, a hint of spiky potential and the kind of rare innocence that was around in the early Eighties, when everyone thought they were being sophisticated but were mostly copping poses. In my case, it was a prolonged summer in Montauban, near Toulouse. I was picking fruit for the cash, hanging with college friends and essentially waiting 'til my light turned green.

In one of the shared flats, the playlist was Michel Polnareff and the bonkers 'Tam Tam', alternating with Téléphone. It was no great nourishment for a young man, but when I occasionally think of 'Cendrillon', my memory goes immediately to redial.