The Atrocious Music Collection: #13 in a series
Artist: Hervé Villechaize (1943-1993)
Song Title: Why
Category: CelebrityYear: 1980
Cover art style: Down on the farm (but "why?" indeed)
Audio sample:Why
Acquisition: Recorded from WFMU ca. 1987
For those too young to know who Hervé Villechaize was, please do not simply consider him the Peter Dinklage of an earlier generation. Dinklage is the better actor, by far, and a native of New Jersey and not France, as Villechaize was. Dinklage also has no recordings to his name (that I know of), although his Saturday Night Live rendition of Space Pants contains something like singing. Finally, we should not even draw the comparison between the two on the rumor that Dinklage once worked on a bio-pic script about Villechaize.
Most importantly, the comparison between Dinklage and Villechaize should not be made, because to do so would be crude, simply drawing attention to their similar size. In truth, as Villechaize gained nearly all his fame from two roles, as Nick Nack in the Bond movie The Man with the Golden Gun and as Tatoo on TV in Fantasy Island, we really should compare him to someone along the lines of a Rupert Grint, or a Sarah Michelle Gellar. (No disrespect to any of these actors, including Villechaize, intended.)
But that’s really beside the point, because the grade of celebrity is rarely a factor in the making of a celebrity recording, it seems. A, B, C, or Z-listers are all equally likely to have a record, although usually an A-lister’s record is either quite good or simply unenjoyable.
Why is an inoffensive anthem for peace, with its heart in the right place. Like far too many celebrity recordings, Why features Villechaize speaking, although he switches to singing pretty quickly. Unfortunately, his singing voice is not much of a step up from his speaking voice. (By the way, I’m not sure why we want to hear a song spoken over music, unless it’s done by William Shatner, of course, but it keeps happening on these recordings.) Villechaize’s French accent in a song with English words also does not help with the delivery.
The pairing with children, both on the cover and singing along with Villechaize, initially struck us as insulting, a clear reference to his dwarfism. One could easily draw the conclusion that the producers of this project simple saw a small adult and thought to pair him with humans of similar stature.
However, the truth is more complex, which is often the case in life. Although the Atrocious Music Collection only includes this single, it came from a larger project, an album called Children of the World. Most songs on the album feature a celebrity or “celebrity.” Most are more appropriately musical people, however - people like Andy Williams, Doc Severinsen, and Charlie Daniels.
The liner notes explain it all, although they begin with an absolutism that I would take issue with, namely that “the voices of singing children never fail to create goose-bumps.” Obviously these guys never had kids of their own.
But skipping over that, the singing kids group on the record, called Children of the World, is trying to warm our hearts and inspire our souls: “It is time that the music of our children be heard outside of school auditoriums and classrooms. It is time for these voices to ride the media and caress the airwaves. For these are the voices of rock and flame.”
A bit hyperbolic, and considering I myself was about 14 in 1980, I want to go on record and say the songs on this album are not at all representative of the “music of our children,” at least not children in 1980.
It also turns out Villechaize did a lot of good work on behalf of child abuse victims, and was therefore a natural for this project. Pairing him with children on a song about peace married his off-screen cause with the intentions of the record in a rather sweet and appropriate way.
And back in the day, all we knew about him was that he shouted, “De plane! De plane!” every week.
Postscript: I cannot find out who wrote the song "Why," and if anyone out there knows, please pass that information along. Thanks!