I'd probably not heard that version by Françoise Hardy before John, virtually everything I ever heard by her would just go over my head. It's pleasant enough but its title is actually "La Maison Où J'ai Grandi" ("The House Where I Grew Up"), my French is extremely rusty but the lyrics, if translated directly into English, sound very different to those used for "Tar & Cement" so the original version would still have to be Adriano Celentano's "Il Raggazzo Della Via Gluck".
I've been doing some more digging and it seems that Swedish singer Anna-Lena Löfgren did a Swedish Language version of "Il Ragazzo Della Via Gluck" called "Lyckliga Gatan" ("Happy Street") and a German Language version called "Immer am Sonntag" ("Always On Sunday").
"Lyckliga Gatan"
"Immer am Sonntag"
Strangely, looking at 45Cat, "Immer am Sonntag" was released as a single on the "B" side of a song called "Dein Glück ist mein Glück" (Your Happiness is My Happiness) ... the title of which could be a reference to, or a play on, the original Italian song title.
https://www.45cat.com/record/m25037 What we really need is a polyglot to let us know how similar the themes of the various lyrics are, and I wonder if there are any other versions in different languages out there.
And back to "Tar & Cement" ... it seems that Joe Dolan's version was a big hit in Ireland ...
Roger
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