Hitching post no.2

Thanks to insomniac-surfer for jogging another memory.

I fucking loved hitch-hiking when I was young, some days could be really shit, but others were unbelievably good. One of my best day's hitching was when I was heading south through France. I'd just left the UK - left shit A-level results, left shit jobs to make some dosh, left the crap weather, the strikes, the Falklands war - everything. I'd set myself up with four weeks of conservation work in the Pyrenees with an international group of like-minded people.

You know it's going to be a good day's hitching when a youngish bloke in a messy car pulls up, you stick your rucksack in the back, jump in the front and virtually the first thing he says is: can you roll us a joint? I didn't really speak French in those days, but his English was really good - he was a wind-surfing instructor, on his way south for the summer season. The weather was good, the grass was good and this guy put a tape on the car stereo. I'd never heard of Renaud before, and could only understand the odd word. [A couple of years later I'd see him live at the Fête de l'Humanité in Paris and would be able to follow the whole set and join in too]. The grass was taking effect and as the music played - a kind of French Bob Dylan-esque style - he translated for me.

The song was 'Le Deserteur', and it was in the form of a letter from a young man who didn't want to do his national service, to the President of France. Something about it really touched me - the calm, sensible way the guy was reasoning, maybe the fact that there had been talk of conscription for the Falklands that year: "I'll never be a soldier - I don't like the sound of marching boots" and the contrast with the hippie good life he was living "I'm living on a farm, we're raising goats and making jewellery", but the final couple of lines brought a tear to my eye:

"Mr President, to finish my message
I'll simply say that tonight we're having noodles
At the farm - it's nice here - come and eat
We'll smoke and joint and have a chat"

or:

"M. le président pour finir ma bafouille
j’voulais te dire simplement que ce soir on ce fait des nouilles
À la ferme c’est l’panard si tu veux viens bouffer
On fumera un pétard et on pourra causer"

Still makes me all teary when I hear it today, something about the way someone could even write a song about inviting the President round for a chat and a joint was so far away from the Thatcher's Britain I'd left...a million miles away from 'Margaret on the guillotine' somehow.
(Che Grimsdale Best before:, Fri 29 Jan 2010, 11:27, Reply)