06 January 2018

Quelque chose de Tennessee à Chinon

Did you know that one of the most popular and recognizable French songs of the past three or four decades is called « Quelque chose de Tennessee »? It's not about the U.S. state of Tennessee, but about the American writer named Tennessee Williams. It was written and recorded by Michel Berger, who died 25 years ago, but it was specifically written for the recently deceased French rock and pop star Johnny Hallyday. The title above is a link to Johnny's version on YouTube, showing audience members singing along— very French. The song was also recorded by Berger and Hallyday together in 1985, when Johnny was younger.


I took the photo above in Chinon in September 2003. Why a Tex-Mex restaurant would be called Le Tennessee, and not Le Texas, I don't know. It's probably not the kind of place you would be interested in if your were on a holiday in France. But when you live here full-time, as an American expatriate, you might be tempted. I see extremely mixed reviews of Le Tennessee on Trip Advisor. And on another web site I see that the restaurant may well have gone out of business. Too bad. Hope you enjoy the Johnny Hallyday clip. It might give you a new view of him and his music, and an idea about how people here loved and admired him. You can read the lyrics here.

21 comments:

  1. I love the fact that Chinon has Tex-Mex. Or had Tex-Mex. Even in the US, this can mean a lot of different things. Many years ago, Rehoboth Beach had a self-proclaimed Tex-Mex restaurant that served tacos on what we in the States call French rolls, with hamburger and iceberg lettuce inside. We found that out first hand, lol.

    Le Tennessee sounds like it would be a name for a barbecue joint. I'm sure you would be happy to have one of those too.

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  2. I made 4 lbs. of pulled pork yesterday. Cooked it in the slow cooker, seasoned it well, and "pulled" it to shred the meat.

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    1. That sounds good! Note the saguaro cactus on the left door of the restaurant.

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  3. It looks like they were going for a whisky label look.

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    1. Bourbon is a venerable French name. Is it called bourbon if it comes from Tennessee, or only if it comes from Kentucky?

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    2. I'd vote for Kentucky, but Black Jack is bourbon. The history of the whiskey is interesting and tied to the French Bourbons. Louisville is named for Louis XVI, etc. Having limestone for the water source is important it seems.

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    3. I did some reading and learned that Tennessee whiskey is bourbon, as you say, but the Tennesseans prefer the name whiskey. Kentucky makes more bourbon by far than any other state, though bourbon can be made anywhere in the U.S. There are more barrels of bourbon aging in Kentucky than there are people living in the state.

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  4. Off topic that may help commenters.

    I now know for sure why my comments disappear when I post them on my iPad mini. It would take too long to explain how I surely found out, but the reason is that when I updated my operating system, from 8.3 to 8.4 and 11.2.1, it then no longer recorded user names and passwords. However it keeps the pre-update user names and passwords. That means if you changed any password after updating, which I did for Google, new passwords aren't recorded. No problems with laptops.

    Now, on an old tablet, IOS 8.3, that I never updated — and still does record user names and passwords — my new Google password WAS recorded. That's why I was able to post a comment on that iPad. So much for the New Improved, i.e. update or upgrade!

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    1. Sounds like IOS needs some TLC.

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    2. Hmmm. But my disappearing comments were made on a desktop machine, running Windows 7. Weird. I wonder if there is/was some glitch in Blogger itself?

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    3. I don't remember ever having the disappearing comment problem when using my Windows machine. And the problem I've had on Android tablets didn't have anything to do with Blogger accounts or passwords. I've just had long or involved comments disappear before I could post them to a blog, and it may well have been "pilot error" in my case. In these cases, maybe I had touched the wrong key on the on-screen keyboard, which I find fairly awkward to use.

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    4. Oh, and it could certainly be a Blogger bug. It's free software, after all. I often trouble formatting the text and photos in my posts. There are a lot of inconsistencies in the HTML formatting codes.

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    5. This morning, I tried a very short comment on Walt's blog on my iPad mini. As usual Google asked for my user name and my (new) password. So far, so good. My comment was shown posted on Walt's blog. Then I went to another blog and came back to Walt's. My comment wasn't there any longer! Blogger didn't like it ? Then, I went to the old iPad. No asking for user name and password. No problem there. ?

      Even though Blogger is free, I agree, I'm sure it brings adds money and name recognition to Google. There s no free lunch!

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    6. I've never had a problem like that. Very strange.

      Wonder why Apple doesn't have a blogging app. I can't imagine that Google makes nearly as much money as Apple does, given the prices Apple charges for its devices. One thousand dollars for a cell phone! Highway robbery.

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    7. What chm describes, of a posted comment saying "OK" but then disappearing, is what happened to me. And I sign in when I post, rather than leave it from day to day.
      Maybe Blogger is haunted. That makes as much sense as anything else.

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    8. Emm, I'll try to be as clear as possible in a language that is not native to me. When I post a comment on my old, non-updated tablet iPad, where my actual current password is stored, Google doesn't ask for user name and password, and the posted comment doesn't disappear. On the other hand, when I try posting a comment on the updated iPad which didn't store my current password, Google ask for user name and password. Even though Google recognize both user name and current password, the comment, even though it appears to have been registered, disappear. And I think this happens because of the discrepancy between the current password and the old one never updated in the iPad. I don't see any other reason.

      Make sure that your current Google's user name and password are recorded in you Windows machine and that could solve your problem. If they were stored in your machine, Google would not ask for user name and password.

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    9. I remember having that account/password problem years ago when posting comments, but it's been a long time since I've seen it. Don't you think there is a way to delete your old Google password on the iPads and enter the new one? Have you Googled to find a solution?

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    10. Are you in Safari when you post comments? Or Chrome. Try this for Chrome.

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    11. It seems I can delete the old password in Safari, but I can't enter the new one manually. I never liked Safari to begin with, and very seldom use it on my laptops since I have Firefox. (See today's [Monday] comment.)

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  5. I seem to remember "Tennessee Sour Mash", "Kentucky Bourbon", and "Canadian Rye". Rather like a jingle. But whiskey is whisky no matter how what you call it or how you spell it.

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What's on your mind? Qu'avez-vous à me dire ?