7 June 1998
‘C’est La Vie’ caught me on the hop. The first time I heard it—heard of it—was when B*Witched were already at number one in the UK and I saw them performing it on Top Of The Pops. At the start, I didn’t even twig they were Irish: that only dawned on me when they started Irish dancing. By the end, I was literally gaping at the TV. In the ’90s we in Ireland were still a rock and indie people, with the odd digression into Eurovision shiny-floor cabaret, but too uncool to do pop properly, let alone rap, dance or anything else that didn’t involve a guitar or Johnny Logan. The naff blandness of Boyzone and The Corrs only seemed to confirm our national ineptitude at chart pop. And now here on actual TV was a sensationally good pop single by an Irish group – and not only that, a group that included two blood relatives of Boyzone. Re-listening to it now, I still feel that same excitement: ‘C’est La Vie’ by B*Witched is fantastic.
I can indulge them the junior-infant verses, its “Mummy always wants you to come for tea” and the like: that’s clearly their notional target market, and in any case no one’s here for the verses. The instrumental diddly-eye section, marked in the video by jigs with co-ordinated fist-pumps and chants like a Fleadh Cheoil militant youth wing, is smart post-Riverdance positioning; think of all the young British kids of Irish heritage going to Irish dancing classes and competitions every weekend, suddenly hearing their pastime and cultural hinterland on the UK number one. The spoken word interjections mercifully stop short of the worst horrors of stage Dublinism. And who would have thought a pop act could make their uniform, their USP and the first thing people remember fondly about B*Witched, double denim? So, even the potential marks against ‘C’est La Vie’ work in its favour, as paraphernalia that make it stick in our minds.
As for the actual positives of ‘C’est La Vie’, right from the off it fizzes with wit and energy. The pre-chorus shakes the Coke bottle remorselessly before the whole thing explodes with that gigantic chorus. They slip the key change into the instrumental mid-section rather than have a clunky jump up for the final chorus. And if it wasn’t already as catchy as hell, it even has double handclaps. You could stack every Boyzone, Westlife and Corrs single on top of each other and still get nowhere near the dizzy pop heights of ‘C’est La Vie’ by B*Witched, the best Irish single of the ’90s.
