The Story Behind The Song: How Air created the classic 1990s track ‘Sexy Boy’
Since the release of their enigmatic 1998 debut album, Moon Safari, French duo Air have enjoyed a quietly successful career. Blending space-age electronics with dream pop, Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunckel have released eight further albums, including the soundtrack to Sofia Coppola’s debut film, The Virgin Suicides.
The pair rose to prominence at the same time Daft Punk were gaining traction as one of the leading figures in electronic music. Dunckel told The Guardian, “Daft Punk were down the street from us in Paris, and we could almost hear the music they were making when we opened the window during band sessions. It was the late 1990s, and Paris suddenly had this incredible electronic music scene.”
The musician claims that despite the booming club scene, he spent much of his time at home taking care of his newborn baby with his wife. “We were poor. I knew our livelihood depended on Air being successful,” he added. “So I poured everything into it”. The pair’s hard work paid off, and Moon Safari was critically lauded, noted for its mellow instrumentation that envelops the listener in a sophisticated, dream-like world.
Their subdued sound, bleeding with an innate sensuality, is no better captured than on ‘Sexy Boy’. As their debut single, the track became hugely popular in the late 1990s, receiving significant radio airplay. Melodic and seductive, ‘Sexy Boy’ is mainly sung in French, adding an air of mystery to the song for non-native listeners. Furthermore, the ‘sexy boy’ refrain (which the pair achieved by manipulating their own breathy vocals) has a distinctly androgynous quality, which gives the song a captivating appeal.
During the same interview with The Guardian, Godin explained how he and Dunckel made ‘Sexy Boy’. He said: “Someone lent me a 1960s Höfner bass, the model Paul McCartney played in the Beatles. Because I was a guitarist, I put it through my guitar amp, which gave this amazing sound: very cool and dry. One day I played a riff to [Dunckel], and he said ‘sexy boy’ out of the blue – and that was how we got the song.”
Explaining the lyrics, he continued: “If we’d sung ‘sexy girl’, it would have been a disaster. ‘Sexy Boy’ felt different. The song was about who we wanted to be; we weren’t handsome when we were younger; our friends always had more success with girls.” This idea is reflected in the French lyrics, which, when translated to English, include the lines: “Dollars in their eyes/ Diamonds in their smiles/ One day too/ I will be beautiful like a God.” Furthermore, the last verse includes the lyrics, “Apollo 2000, zero faults/ twenty-one years old/ He’s the ideal man/ with his masculine charm.”
“Ever since I was a child, I’d dreamed of making a classic album – and I actually did. The night we did ‘Sexy Boy’, I knew my life would change,” Godin claimed. It’s safe to say that Godin’s life certainly did change, and Moon Safari has since been rightfully recognised as a seminal release.
