FRANCOISE HARDY & I

Reflections On Meeting The Late French Pop Icon

This is my favourite Francoise album cover. I will treasure her dedication for the rest of my life.

Just before I went to bed on Tuesday night I looked on Facebook and there a pal had posted a photo I’d not seen before – seated face to face were Bob Dylan and Francoise Hardy. Dylan’s hair was at its most tangled and he appeared tiny while the perfectly groomed Hardy tower over him. Mid-1960s I guessed. Anyway, an amusing shot of two pop icons who, much to Bob’s disappointment, never got to be described as an “odd couple”. My pal is a Dylan fanatic so I guessed this is why he posted the image. Then I looked and saw he’d written “RIP Francoise Hardy”. OK.

I knew Hardy had been seriously ill, to the point of calling on the French government to legalise euthanasia as she no longer wished to live (in 2021). So this wasn’t a big surprise. I went off to bed thinking of how much I enjoyed her music. And recalling the time I got to hang with France’s No 1 pop icon in her extremely exclusive Paris apartment.