1 of 1- aflem
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Petula Clark's "Downtown" As You've Never Heard It Before
The 1964 hit has become something of an iconic record for Petula Clark, but while tuning my radio on Sunday, I accidentally passed by a local ethnic station, only to discover they were playing a version of Downtown I wasn't even aware existed. It was definitely Pet Clark, but it was being sung entirely in German.
I know The Beatles famously sung some of their early hits in that language, and I was aware that Ms. Clark was multilingual, but until hearing this I never knew she sang the song "auf deutsch." I don't speak a work of the language, but I had to laugh as I listened to this ancient relic from another time - apparently, the German word for "Downtown" is "Downtown," since it's the only English spoken in the entire thing!
The song was also released in Spanish and French, and this one reached #1 in Germany.
Anyway, worth a quick sampling if you're into hearing alternate versions of songs you'd otherwise never be aware of.
- Lorne
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Re: Petula Clark's "Downtown" As You've Never Heard It Before
The Wikipedia article on the song has the following info:
Petula Clark, who had been playing to her French-speaking fans in small venues in Quebec when "Downtown" entered the US charts, swiftly cut non-English versions of the song for the markets in France, Italy and Germany; the absence in each region's language of a two-syllable equivalent of "downtown" necessitated a radical lyric recasting for the versions aimed at France ("Dans le temps"), Italy ("Ciao Ciao", winning the Festivalbar, a juke-box contest) and Spain ("Chao Chao") which respectively charted at No. 6, No. 2 and – for three weeks – No. 1: "Dans le temps" also reaching No. 18 on Belgium's French-language chart. The title and lyric "Downtown" was retained for an otherwise German version which was the most successful foreign-language version, reaching No. 1 in Germany, No. 3 in Austria, and No. 11 on the charts for the Flemish region of Belgium.
I don't know German either, but my inference from the above is that they just decided to keep the word "Downtown" in the German version rather than recast that part of the lyrics. Anyway, it's impressive that she did the song in so many other languages and did so well with these versions.
- mroldies
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Re: Petula Clark's "Downtown" As You've Never Heard It Before
I would like to write the following on the subject:
Both English (PYE) and German (Vogue Schallplatten) versions of the song were probably sold in Germany.
I have printed versions of German singles TOP 10. These TOP 10 list PYE as the publisher of that hit each week.
All other Petula Clark German hits are listed - Vogue.
It can therefore be assumed that the share of the German-sung version on the first place in the chart was negligible.
Or do you have another explanation?
Last edited by mroldies (August 13, 2023 9:51 am)