Someone is born in Paris and dies in Majadahonda. Nothing is more. Paris, Majadahonda, that trip, Wim Wenders and not yours. Someone educated in a family of musicians and artists, nine years of conservatory in Paris, expert clarinetist, and more than competent with saxophone and accordion, inciting Spain from the Grand Prix al Cachete, pechito y ombligo. A fan of jazz musician Stan Getz, thanks to whom he discovers bossa nova, he composes La barbacoa. From playing the saxophone with Gene Vincent to wondering what the black man wants. If this were Hollywood, Georgie Dann would have a biopic, three tribute albums by indie bands and his face carved into the Mulhacén.
Georgie Dann represented France in 1965 for a competition in Barcelona called the VI Mediterranean Song Festival. He was shocked. It was similar to what Prince Faisal says to Lieutenant Lawrence in David Lean’s film: “You’re one of those Englishmen who likes the desert and there’s nothing in the desert” – they could have said in French, to whom the Spain of the sixties fascinated him. He tried with songs that were basically adaptations of French hits, and searched and searched until he found the how and the way with El casatschok in 1969. It was nonsense with the excuse of the Soviet cliché. The theme was refined with songs such as Macumba, El bimbó, El africano, La barbacoa, El negro no puede among others.
There are many reasons for its success. Some obvious and others almost metaphysical. The man was nice because he was the typical Guiri who speaks with an accent, who thinks all our oddities, barbarities and kindnesses are great. He was the foreigner who writes letters to his country looking at us from the outside and the portrait is always pleasant, sympathetic, understanding and isolationist. In other words, we are the best and let others invent. Nothing new: long live Albania!
In addition, he looked like yeyé. It brought a bit of modernity without pretense. With his gogós girls, he landed like Apocalypse now, that amazing variety show for the boys at the front. The TV number was pretty girls around a normal Frenchman, perfect for the local cretin, as you have to think that in Georgie Dann’s time there were also hits like La Ramona or Saca el whiskey Chely . A handsome gallant with two or three vestals dancing around would not have been accepted. He did even better: he married one of the go-gos (from Barcelona), with which the morality and the certainty that it was not a covert Manson clan was certified.
Georgie Dann understood this country well. There was a part of the population with Hernández and Machado via Serrat, and others who were progressive bricks or protest songs. Those of light music – girls and boys singing to love – folk songs recycled in bars in Marbella, groups with long hair clashing against an industry designed to enjoy young men and TVE galas. There was no one to worry about the family summer, dignified but poor, charon, sardines, towel, grandma and ice cream on the seafront. The French did not intend to act as a social notary, but to give that lower middle class enough self-respect to put sausages and sausages on the barbecue, to ask themselves what the black man might want, or for Mrs. Úrsula and Mr. Moisès to put pechito and culito and meet again biblically thirty years after the last time.
The song seemed the same year after year with the lyrics changing, but that didn’t seem to bother anyone, neither the performer nor the audience. Georgie Dann before devoting himself fully to music was a primary school teacher. There he discovered that children learned earlier and better if it was with music. He applied the same formula with Spanish adults and it worked. It was only necessary to increase the thermostat.
Georgie Dann went so far as to claim that the lyrics of his songs had no double meaning. He lied In El chiringuito: “Girls don’t stew or cook in the summer.” They go crazy if they try my sardine.” C.Tangana sings it with Andrés Calamaro and we rank it as a masterpiece. With Georgie Dann, we either appealed to cognitive dissonance or played brother-in-law. What can we say about the sexual menus offered by Georgie Dann at his bar? : “Conejo a la francesa / pechuga a la española / y clams a la inglesa” or let’s see how the chef solves the agglomeration of diners when the tide rises. Straight and short: “People get together and I give them black pudding”. No wonder this song inspired a television show and a way to get an audience: Mbappé and sausages.
