since it's Bastille Day, i figured it would be nice to have a playlist all in French. my family might come from Belgium but the French always take credit for everything good that is Belgian, which makes us all a little French to you i guess. Napoléon even ruled Belgium for a little while, till he lost the battle of Waterloo... i lived 4 years in the South of France where my brothers Eric & Jonathan were born. we spent many holidays between the French Riviera, the Provence & the Alps after all... everywhere else we attended French International schools, each earning the French Baccalauréat (a more widely recognized high school degree than the American one). even my South African relatives are descendants of the Huguenots who emigrated from the wine regions South of France & founded the prolific South African wine country around Cape Town (very similar to the Napa Valley)... anyhew, the French in me calls for French music today. if nothing else, how could i not celebrate the country of Yves Saint Laurent?! he always invited the most exotic models onto his runways. in that spirit, i decided to present you with some of my favorite music in French by Cambodian Yé Yé star TINY YONG (pronounced Tee-nee); she became a famous actress & singer in the 50s & 60s. in song #16 she explains that her friends now call her Tiny & her boss gave her that name cuz her real one is way too long: Thien Juong Ton Hu Thi...
close to Tiny's Cambodia, in Vietnam today...
another Miss Venezuela was crowned Miss Universe:
it must be something in the water. back in the 90s, when my family & i lived in Caracas, a former Miss Venezuela & Miss Universe 1981 was the mayor of Chacao (the district we lived in). her name is Irene Sáez, which is why Chacao is now commonly called Irenelandia:
and then there was Miss USA haha:
