Lately the TV had been showing episodes of Star Wars and the animation ‘The Clone War’, and so the familiar musical score by John William is getting frequent airing. While I really enjoy listening to John William’s compositions, I am reminded of a less well known French composer: Francis Lai. While his music had made a big splash in my high school days, I was not aware of him until early 1981.   

In the month of February of 1981, I was three weeks into a 12 weeks secondment by ICL to its systems development center in Braknell, UK to work on a database management system. The single members of the project team was just beginning to invite me to join them for after hour drinks in the local pub, probably because they considered I was an asset and not a burden. One of the jolly guys by the name of Steve Brooksbank asked if I am interested in joining him to watch a soccer match the coming weekend. Now Steve was what I would consider a hardy sod who would go out in winter with a thin shirt, a long scarf and an overcoat for his top. As for me, I needed 3 layers of clothing on top of my thermal underwear to even contemplating venturing outdoor. I really do not relish spending 3 or 4 hours in the open, especially since it had started snowing the week before. So I tactfully declined. Knowing that he was trying to be friendly, I asked him to join me for a drink of Chinese tea after lunch. (I carried a box of ‘Bullet’ Tea 珠茶 for use in the pantry). To my surprise he took to the strong brew rather well. (He commented jokingly that Bullet Tea tasted like gunpowder, and he, being an Arsenal fan, should have little trouble getting use to). That prompted me to asked if he would have dinner with me Friday evening. He accepted the offer, having first made me promised that exotic stuffs like monkey brain, dog stew were not on the card. I assured him that we would be having only roasted meat with rice or noddle.   

Come Friday evening and instead of taking the obvious option of going to Chinatown in London, Steve suggested that we try Reading, a large town in the opposite direction. An hour’s train ride saw us in Reading, and another 5 minutes of brisk walk took us to the town’s High Street. We soon found a small Chinese/Vietnamese restaurant where we had a satisfactory evening meal. Over the meal we chatted and got to know each other very well. By the end of it I was quite open to the notion of spending the rest of the evening in a pub, but Steve had other ideas. With a mischievous twinkle in his eyes he suggested we go view a French film. Never too keen on alcoholic beverages, I readily agreed. When we arrived at the cinema hall it was a regular ‘movie house’ and not the cinema-plex of 3-4 small screens. In fact it was rather well attended. The only show it was exhibiting then was titled simply Bilitis. With a title like that (it sounded suspiciously like a skin condition) I have absolutely no idea of what to expect. Steve nodded reassuringly and the others there appeared to be a quite ordinary lot, so we paid the entrance fee and went in.   

As it turned out, the show was about the sexual awakening of a adolescent girl named, you guessed it, Bilitis. There were plenty of frontal nudity and love scenes in soft focus; the dialogue was in French with subtitle in English. In other words, to not put too fine a point upon it, it was a Continental soft porn, something that was quite mainstream at the time. (BBC at the same time had a weekly serial named Cleopatra!, where some of the actresses were shown wearing nothing apart from a sprinkling of tinsel dust on their pubic hair.) Unlike the usual British films that would had treated the subject matter of this nature with lots of whimsical comedy, it was both serious and deliberate. So all in all, another forgettable cinematic experience except for one feature: the lovely nonchalant melody of the musical score keeps playing on and on in my head. After the show I scrutinized the billboard and it says (in French) Musique de Francis Lai. That was how I came across the name of Francis Lai. Before I left UK in late March, I went to watch another French film titled Emmanuelle II for the sole intention of hearing his musical score, and I was not disappointed.   

After my return, I did not expect to hear of any more of his works as Singapore do not approve of X-rated movies. I had pictured him to be a brilliant but poor composer struggling to survive by composing for the soft porn industry. I started making a note of the composer whenever I come across a piece of music I like, hoping to see his name associated with great musical scores again. Thus it was by pure chance that I picked up a CD sound track of Love Story (a huge hit back in 1970, when I was in high school) and by force of habit, looked for name of composer and found Francis Lai listed. Now this is momentous, because I was wrong about him composing for the soft porn industry exclusively. In fact, Emmanuelle II and Bilitis were his only work in this doggy sector. What a relief ! Since then I’d been tracking Lai’s work. His style had evolved in his career of nearly 4 decades, and the repertoire of his works had expanded to include pop songs and poem; but I still detect the nonchalant in all my favourites old and new. Below are a small collection of my all time favourites in MP3 format. Give it a listen. Who knows, you might find yourself a fan too.   

  1. Bilitis (Soundtrack)
  2. Emmanuelle II (Soundtrack)
  3. Love Story (Soundtrack)
  4. Snow Frolic (Soundtrack: Vocal by Danielle Licari)
  5. Un Home Et Une Femme (Soundtrack: A Man and A Woman)
  6. 13 Jours En France (Soundtrack: 13 Hours in France, a documentary of The Winter Olympic Games in Grenoble)
  7. 13 Jours en France Piano version
  8. Vivre Pour Vivre (Soundtrack: Live For Life)
  9. la Bicyclette (Soundtrack)
  10. Passion Flower Hotel
  11. la Vraie Vie (Vocal by Mireille Mathieu and Francis Lai)
  12. The Christmas Trees
  13. Serenade for Sarah
  14. L’amour D’aimer (Vocal)
  15. Concerto Pour La Fin D’un Amou (Concerto For A Love’s Ending)
  16. Ballade Pour Ma Memoire (Vocal Liliane Davis and Francis Lai)
  17. le Passager de la Pluie (Soundtrack: Rider on the Rain stars Charles Bronson)

Francis Lai and Mireille Mathieu