In an interview for the NME, the late John Peel famously set out his detestation of this song, naming it as one of the worst things he'd ever heard. I've tried to put that comment to the back of my mind, but it's difficult; when somebody I admire(d) so much makes such a definitive statement as to quality then I tend to sit up and take notice. It doesn't follow that I'll automatically agree, but their viewpoint will colour my own, though in this case I'm happy to meet John more than halfway.I've often seen a paradox in the fact that us Brits tend to venerate the culture of the continent as something to admire in any field other than popular music. We're happy to trumpet the marvels of (for example) Italian cooking or French wine, but their home-grown pop stars can barely get arrested in our domestic charts. "Where Do You Go To (My Lovely)" aims for the best of both worlds by nailing it's Francophile colours to the mast from the off with a waltzing accordion mimicking a tune ripe to cue a Brel or Gainsborough stepping up to the microphone. Alas, instead we get the very British Peter Sarstedt adding a hint of 'Carry On Napoleon' to his accent whenever it's required to force his words to scan and rhyme. Which is quite often all told.
Because in order to add some of that continental sophistication to his rags to riches story of a woman called "Marie Claire", Sarstedt pulls his 'Boys Book Of French Culture' off the shelf to fashion some truly torturous rhymes from the entries therein to describe her lifestyle - "St Michel/Sasha Distell", "Zizi Jeanmaire/pearls in your hair", "Juan-les-Pines/an even suntan" - on and on it goes in a bucket list of French cliche and yet for all that the very opening line tells us his Naples born "Marie Claire" talks like a German (Marlene Dietrich). Say what?
And to what end is Sarstedt aiming I wonder? I'm still no clearer on what his/the narrator's point is in continuously badgering her with "Where do you go to my lovely, when you're alone in your bed" and he snootily dismisses her virtues as if they were vices - why is he so intent on reminding her of her past ("So look into my face Marie-Claire, and remember just who you are")? Both were children in rags "touched with a burning ambition to shake off their lowly-born tags" so is this the tut tut of a jealous man keen to see her back down in the hole he's never managed to climb out of? And how very British if it is.
And this Marie Claire, just how did she get out of the gutter to a life amongst the jet set? Sheer hard work (she studied at the Sorbonne, apparently), fortuitous circumstance or is there an accusation of sleeping her way to the top? We're not told because, in such a black and white presentation, it matters not a jot, not least because by the end Sarstedt reveals he knew all along where his lovely went to when alone in her bed, making the preceding four minutes little more than a pointless exercise of spiteful baiting.
And therein lies my main beef with "Where Do You Go To (My Lovely)"- it's superficially shallow and inherently mean spirited with it's own ridiculous awfulness dressed up in a clumsy attempt to dab a touch of class to a gallon bottle of cheap house plonk by adding some hi-falutin French phrases and a line drawing of a vineyard on the label. I don't share Mr Peel's view that it's one of the worst things ever committed to vinyl, but, sacrebleu and zut alors, I wouldn't shed too many tears if I never heard it again.
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