Ah Jaysus! If it isn’t one of the nineties most beloved pop ditties, so that it is…

C’est la Vie, by B*Witched (their 1^st of four #1s)

2 weeks, from 31^st May – 14^th June 1998

I don’t feel so bad putting on the ol’ stereotypical Irishisms, because this silly record is drenched in such nonsense. It may be one of the decade’s best-loved pop songs, but it got on my tits aged twelve and I’m glad to report that it still gets on them twenty-six years later.

Is it the nursery rhyme verses? Is it the perky production? Is it the Irishisms? (Get a loife… What are ye like…?) Or is it all of the above, plus the group’s horrific double-denim outfits in the video? Yep, it’s the whole shebang. This is bubble-gum so sweet and cloying that you want to spit it out after just five seconds.

And if you sit down to really listen to the lyrics, a fool’s errand with a song like this, then your distaste only deepens. Say you will, Say you won’t, Say you’ll do what I don’t, Say you’re true, Say to me, C’est la vie… They are words, words put together, put together because they form catchy rhymes, in English and in French; but they’re gibberish. Of course this isn’t the first pop song to make zero sense, so perhaps I’m being harsh. But even the innuendo – and I’m normally a big fan of innuendo – leaves me rolling my eyes. Do you ever get lonely playing with your toy…? I’ll show you mine if you show me yours… Oh lord, please don’t.

The closest this comes to passable pop is in the bridge, the huff and puff bit (this record is very heavy on the nursery rhymes). And that bit is undeniably catchy. But just as you begin to put together a defence for ‘C’est la Vie’, in comes the demented faux-Riverdance middle-eight and your case crumbles. Nope, nope, nope. Cover it in lead and chuck in the Liffey.

B*Witched were from Dublin, and had formed in 1996. Two of the four were twins, Edele and Keavy Lynch (sisters of Boyzone’s Shane Lynch), while the other two were their friends from dance and kickboxing classes. At least they didn’t go down the bland ballad route of their brother’s group (I should add a ‘yet’, as we have three more B*Witched #1s to get through). You can see what they were going for with the slightly watered-down version of fun and feisty girl power, but I wasn’t the right age for it in 1998 and I’m certainly not the right age for it now. I am, however – and without giving too much away – fully prepared to defend their next chart-topper as a lost classic.

We’ve had plenty of pop number ones in the past few years. But everything about ‘C’est la Vie’, from the production to the video, ups the cheese, the bubble-gum, the trashiness… call it what you will. And this record sets the tone for the next couple of years, in which the singles chart will be dominated by primary coloured, tween pop. And we can perhaps explore why that was as we get closer towards the end of the century…

As a final aside, and with the eyes of the world currently on Paris, I make this the 3rd number one single with a French title, after ‘Que Sera Sera’ and ‘Je T’Aime… Moi Non Plus’. Let me know if I’ve missed one.