“Chanson D’Amour” (‘Love Song’) is a song written by Wayne Shanklin. It was originally recorded by in 1958 by the husband and wife team of Art and Dotty Todd where reached No. 6 on the Billboard. The Manhattan Transfer remade “Chanson D’Amour” for their 1976 Coming Out album. The song came to the group’s producer Richard Perry’s attention as a demo on cassette. The group and Richard listened, and immediately decided to record the song. Janis Siegel sang the lead with an Edith Piaf sound, and it was recorded in one take. Overlooked in the United States in its single release, the Manhattan Transfer’s version of “Chanson D’Amour” became a European hit, breaking out on the charts in France at the start of 1977 to peak there at No. 8: the track subsequently became a hit in Germany (20), the Netherlands (6), Norway (1) and Switzerland (6). In the English-speaking world, “Chanson D’Amour” afforded the Manhattan Transfer a chart-topping hit, reaching No. 1 in March 1977 in both the UK and Ireland.
“A-Ba-Ni-Bi” (language game) was the winning song in the Eurovision Song Contest 1978, performed for Israel by Izhar Cohen and Alphabeta. This was Israel’s first Eurovision win, which meant under the rules of the contest that they would host the following year’s contest, marking the first time that the contest would take place outside Europe. The song (written by Ehud Manor and composed and conducted by Nurit Hirsh, a duo who had collaborated frequently in writing Israeli Eurovision entries) is an up-tempo disco number, heralding a move towards this style of performance in later years. Mistakenly, the song title was captioned on screen at the contest as being “Ah-Bah-Nee-Bee” and was further confused in the UK singles market when listed on the official singles chart compiled by Music Week as “A-Bi-Ni-Bi”. It peaked at No.20 in the UK.
“Ça Plane Pour Moi” is a 1977 song by Plastic Bertrand, though its vocals were actually performed by Lou Deprijck, the record’s producer and composer. The song has been covered by many artists, though Plastic Bertrand’s original recording was the most successful, reaching No. 8 on the UK charts in the summer of 1978. While mainly regarded as a punk song, “Ça plane pour moi” has also been described as parody punk and as new wave. The song’s name is a French idiomatic expression that is best translated as “everything’s going well for me” (literally: “it is gliding for me”). In the U.S., the single peaked at No. 47 on the Billboard.
“Denis” is a 1978 cover of the song by the American new wave band Blondie. This effort helped the band break into the international market. It was featured on the band’s second studio album, Plastic Letters (1978), and was the second UK single release by Blondie. The initial Blondie version contained a verse with partly improvised lyrics in French by the group’s vocalist Debbie Harry. “Denis” was released in February 1978 and scored a number 2 in the UK and broke into the Top 20 in most European countries. “Denis” was the only single released in the US from Plastic Letters (with “I’m on E” as the B-side) though it never charted.
