Released March 1990 Genre House | Recorded 1989 Length 3:50 | |
Format CD single, 7" maxi, 12" maxi Writer(s) Lil Louis
B. Bayle
Lagaf' | ||
"Bo le lavabo (WC Kiss)" is a 1990 novelty song recorded by the French TV presenter and humorist Lagaf'. It was his debut single and achieved success in France.
Contents
Background and writing
In one of his sketches, humorist Vincent Lagaf' (Vincent Rouil), who featured on several TV programs in the 1980s and 1990s, commented on how easy it was to produce a hit single during the house period, because the repetitive music distracts the audience from the words, reduced to a bare and trivial content. The sketch had a great success, and an unpretentious and ironic single was released. Against all odds, it managed to reach number one on French Singles Chart.
The lyrics are deliberately very poor. In them, Lagaf' explains that, for producing a hit every year, changing the words is enough: the first year, we can sing "il est beau le lavabo" ("the sink is beautiful"), the second year, "il est laid le bidet" ("the bidet is ugly"), and the third year, we mix both versions.
The music uses a sample recorded by Lil Louis from his song "French Kiss", which was released in 1989.
After this amazing success, Lagaf' released a new single the following year, "La Zoubida", which was even more successful than "Bo le lavabo (WC Kiss)" (number one for 11 weeks).
Chart performances
In France, the single debuted at the bottom of the chart on March 24, 1990. It progressed steadily in the chart, even if sometimes lost a few places, and eventually reached #1, on June 16. It remained only a single week at the top of the chart but stabilized in the top ten for a total of 18 weeks. It fell off the top 50 on September 29, after its 28th week. The single was certified Gold disc by the SNEP, the French certifier. According to the Infodisc website, with over 400,000 copies sold, the song is to date the 718th best-selling single of all time in France.