"I could never write a song in French"
Just by singing in English, precocious French duo the Do (pronounced "doe") have sparked a cultural shift in their homeland. Their playful, genre-hopping debut album A Mouthful topped French charts in January, as did their first single On My Shoulders (see video below). But unlike most hit bands in French history, their entire album, bar one song, is in English.
"I could never write a song in French," singer Olivia Merilahti, 26, told Parisian newspaper Le Monde last week, in an article on the phenomenon of French bands singing in English. "It's not my way of feeling music. Also I look for universality, and English is the universal language."
"All the record labels told us that it was impossible to release an album if you don't sing at least one or two songs in French," Levy says in faltering but enthusiastic English. "For us it was like 'What are you telling us?' Now with Europe, and the internet, we are not just French any more. For me, we are not living in France, we are living in Europe."
