Moonlight at Maubeuge

Under normal circumstances, only necessity would draw any Frenchman to Maubeuge (pop. 30,000), a cheerless, Hoboken-like manufacturing center up near the Belgian border, where the moon--or, for that matter, the sun--shines rarely on the River Sambre. But all summer long the roads to Maubeuge have been jammed with moonstruck vacationers, honeymooners and touring rubbernecks, all lured there by what promises to become Europe's next popular hit--a tango called Un Clair de Lune `a Maubeuge (Moonlight at Maubeuge).*

Since Moonlight came out last February, it has sold a phenomenal 1,700,000 disks. It has been recorded in Flemish, Spanish, German and Italian, and in 42 different versions. It has been done `a la New Orleans, in cha cha cha rhythm and as a twist, as a military march and in a stately imitation of Johann Sebastian Bach. Frank Sinatra sang it in French at a Cap-Martin nightclub, and an English songwriter is at work on English lyrics. In all styles, and in any language, Moonlight at Maubeuge is a gag.

The leg-puller is Pierre Perrin, 32, a onetime government clerk whose marriage to Brigitte Bardot's movie stand-in broke up in 1958. Despondent, Perrin tried suicide (poison and gas). On recovering, he took his psychiatrist's advice to drive a cab in Paris for the therapeutic value. Annoyed by gabby passengers, Perrin responded to their chatter with the same contemptuous wisecrack: "Mais tout (a ne vaut pas un clair de lune `a Maubeuge" (But all that is not worth the moonlight at Maubeuge)--a retort all the more effective in that Perrin had never set eyes on Maubeuge.

Between fares, Driver Perrin pasted together some lyrics -"I've "traveled the world, I know the universe/ I've rolled in luxury, and I've rolled my r's/ And I say, no--no, no, no, no . . . All that's not worth the moonlight at Maubeuge"--and put them to music. At first, hearing the song, the Maubeugeois felt insulted, but as crowds of the curious began to visit the town, shopkeepers and bistro owners changed their tune. Crescent-shaped lights were strung over the streets; shop windows were filled with moon-shaped cookies, sausages, souvenir pigeon baskets and ashtrays. Mayor Pierre Forest made Songwriter Perrin an honorary citizen; and last week the city tidied up after a nine-day festival that naturally featured the song, Moonlight at Maubeuge, and drew a crowd of 150,000. Unbelievably, the moon appeared over Maubeuge every festival night.

* Europe's last bestseller: Never on Sunday.

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