Francis Lai (Guest rec from Emma Withers)

Today we have a guest recommendation from

Emma Withers

whose newsletter,

emma withers says new music!

, offers a weekly selection of new releases with her finest observations, serious and not, as well as interviews, and playlists designed around books, films, holidays, and whatever else she thinks is fun.

If you know the theme from Love Story (you do) then you know Francis Lai. Failing that, what about the sweetly blithe theme from Un homme et une femme? You might not know its name, but you certainly know it too. Francis Lai was one of France’s most prolific film composers, a self-taught musician who began his career playing piano and accordion, who worked as Édith Piaf’s accompanist in Paris, and who composed music for over 100 films.

The soundtrack I’ve chosen is Bilitis, a film that I suppose can only be described as a very bad erotic movie, and a French erotic movie at that. What I love about the music is the way it totally relinquishes itself to cliché. There’s an air of real bravado and decadence about some of the musical choices. Tacky, maybe, but you know he believes in them.

Francis Lai found something that worked for him and created soundtracks that heave and long. He used synthesisers liberally, he created vaseline on the lens music that is still musty with the smell of cigarette smoke from the 70’s. I heard the soundtrack to Bilitis for the first time, rather appropriately, in Paris. I’d rented an apartment, which had a great record collection. I put it on, its woozy synthy waves filled the room. Some pieces of music fulfil their destiny. How could you hear this theme (which he repeats liberally throughout the soundtrack) and not imagine the strap of a top that slips off a shoulder, warm skin, a squinting-ly bright sky, the palest pink cotton sheet on a bed. It’s music that transports, wherever that may be.

Bilitis (Original Movie Soundtrack) - Francis Lai (37m, vocal notes on tracks 9 and 11)
Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube Music / Amazon Music / Tidal

Have a great Wednesday.