'Parisienne Walkways'
Feb
24
Written by:
Sunday, February 24, 2008
The cultural links between Ireland and France have always been strong. The Flight Of The Earls in 1607 saw us lose our Gaelic nobility, who fled to France and left their loyal Irish subjects behind as a leader-less shower of peasants. Later, Wolfe Tone returned to Ireland from France to try to incite republican uprising and sing republican ballads.
Enterprising mercenary Richard Hennessy so impressed King Louis XV that in 1765 the early Irish entrepreneur was granted the town of Cognac, where he started producing the drink that today is popular both with US rappers and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il (apparently a fiend for the stuff).
And, speaking of short leaders with strange hair, Bono lives in the south of France and writes (with Simon Carmody!) the occasional song for Johnny Hallyday. Yes, French culture is all the richer for its Irish influence.
No doubt with this cultural kinship in mind, Gary Moore and Phil Lynott (right) wrote the massively popular 'Parisienne Walkways'. Originally featuring on Moore's 1978 album 'Back On The Streets', the track was released as a single in April 1979 and reached number 8 in the UK Top Ten.
The lyrics, typically for Lynott's non-Lizzy work, are quite maudlin: the narrator is sentimental for "Paris in '49 / The Champs-Elysées, Saint Michel / and old Beaujolais wine" and reminisces about "those summer days spent outside corner cafés". All very picture-postcard, like.
But then again, no one listens to this song for its two short verses of words. No, 'Parisienne Walkways' features one of the most famous guitar lines in rock, no doubt still accompanied on countless tennis rackets in front of bedroom mirrors the world over.
It's a staple of air guitar competitions (and 'Air Guitar Hits' compilation albums), soundtrack to the hunched-over-the-axe, hair-hanging-over-face, standing-on-mountain-peak position.
You can perfect your moves by watching Moore and Lynott duetting live in the '80s (at the Ulster Hall in Belfast in 1984, apparently, but we're not quite sure). Air guitarists, your cue is at 2 mins 30 seconds: