In this unique film for BBC Four, Petula Clark, who shot to stardom in France in the late 1950s, explores the story of the lyric-driven French chanson and looks at the reasons for its unprecedented longevity. Clark will meet the prodigious singers and artists who propelled the art form into the spotlight including Jane Birkin who had a global hit with the controversial Je t’aime (Moi non plus) alongside Serge Gainsbourg. She will also explore the clubs and districts in Paris that helped give the art form a platform and propel singers into the spotlight. Clark will also uncover the art of contemporary French composition, looking at lyrical form, and how this distinctive song-writing has inspired a new genre of chanson including Camille, Zaz Benjamin Biolay, Vanessa Paradis and Etienne Daho, who have remixed, amplified, sampled and morphed the traditional form into a new sound, taking it back onto the streets and to underground venues on the peripheries of Paris.