Everyone at Chateau de Bois Giraud hopes that you so enjoy your time there that you feel the need to liberate your emotions, ignore the remarks and startled glances of friends, family and teenage offspring, throw caution to the winds and dance in the grounds. After all, the sunrays illuminate the golds and greens of the landscape, the smell of hot viands from the barbeque assail your senses. Besides, you are on holiday and as the grounds are most extensive, no-one – barring those mentioned above –  will be able to see you.

But what music should accompany your terpsichorean pursuits? This is, of course, a highly subjective issue and all I will suggest here is that as you are in the heart of the Loire Valley, some French popular tunes are called for. Furthermore, as somewhat of a Blouson noir (France’s answer to the Teddy Boy) my first choice is, inevitably, the late great Johnny Hallyday. His records and performances were loathed by President De Gaulle, who once stated that his fans were in extreme need of being drafted into road-gangs ‘because they clearly have too much energy to spare’. Here is the country’s ‘Rocker Nationale’ in 1960: part Eddie Cochran, part Billy Fury – and 100% Hallyday https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7V2nY3xMENM

Next, we have Serge Gainsbourg and let us say from the outset that Je t’aime… moi non plus is far far from his greatest work. Television footage of the late 1950s and the 1960s often reveals a visibly petrified figure (he was, by all accounts, a shy man) who was contractually obliged to mime to his latest witty self-penned disc. If seeing this 1964 footage of Serge in the company of a manically dancing Jean-Pierre Cassel does not make you want to do the twist on the Chateau driveway, you might just be officially dead – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2a2rrdti8XM

Thirdly we have Vince Taylor (et Ses Playboys) who claimed to be American, was Brian Holden from Hounslow, and who achieved his greatest fame in France. His act is best described as a ménage of early Elvis, mid-period Gene Vincent and a Paris hooligan lurking in a coffee bar, and we take no responsibility for any injuries/people laughing hysterically at you from trying to copy his stage routines – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nB6uSE0NSA

And finally, we have Dick Rivers et Les Chats Sauvages; the combo whose sounds helped to cause a riot at the Palais des Sports de Paris in 1961. We sincerely hope that your own dance moves do not provoke a similar reaction… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBk7dv_OuSU