I remember hearing this song on the radio sometime in the 1970s and asking my Dad if he knew who it was by. He seemed to think that it was Bob Dylan and as my Dad wasn’t keen on Bob Dylan he then went on to tell me that he thought he was over rated and his music was cobblers. It is funny how one’s parents influence you however isn’t it? As a result of this I have never been much of a Dylan fan and on coming to his work later in life I find myself thinking that whilst some of his work is good that perhaps he is not the genius some people believe him to be.
As a further result of this mis-information I didn’t manage to find out that ‘Where Do You Go To My Lovely’ was written and performed by Peter Sarstedt until well into the late 1980s when I found it on a CD collection entitled ‘No. 1s of the 1960s’ issued by EMI records! Having discovered it, it then became one of my favourite songs from that era.
For me the song has an enormous appeal in that it refers to ‘a secret kept for a number of years’ as well as the almost universal desire to improve one’s life and overcome adversity and that essentially no one ever really knows precisely what is going on in the mind or thoughts of any of us, which makes for a fascinating composition. At the time when this was written the idea of skiing in St.Moritz and sunbathing in foreign climes as well as fancy apartments in Paris were alien to the majority of us and so the added glamour of such things also helps to underpin the concept of the song and just how far Marie- Claire has travelled on her journey.
I love this song and it was nice to find some footage of Peter S performing it in colour too.
Now listen to the song….
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