Cover Me #1 - Poupée de Cire, Poupée de Son

"Poupée de Cire, Poupée de Son" is a song that was written by Serge Gainsbourg to be performed by France Gall.  It was the winning song in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1965.  The title means "doll of wax, doll of sawdust" and is full of double-entendres and wordplay (if you understand French).  "Poupée de son" is a common phrase for a rag doll, but "son" has a second meaning, which is "sound", so the phrase also means "song doll" or "singing doll".  It can also be inferred that "Wax doll" is an association with wax discs... or records.  France Gall was too young at the time to understand that she was singing about herself being a singing doll, with Serge pulling the string on her back, and has since refused to talk about the song or sing it in any performances because she felt used by him.  Serge Gainsbourg had this to say about the winning song: "The songs young people turn to for help in their first attempts at discovering what life and love are about, are sung by people too young and inexperienced to be of much help and condemned by their celebrity to find out."

Within recent years, the song has been covered by The Arcade Fire and Belle and Sebastian.