ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to look more specifically at the nature of the songs which were so vital to the identity of the youth culture which provided the soundtrack to this social change. One of the most prominent factors leading to the discrediting of yeye is that many yeye hits were covers. Although Johnny Hallyday has become increasingly involved over the years in songwriting, he still tends more often to be identified as the singer of other people's songs, and therefore as lacking the supposed authenticity and skill of the singer-songwriter. Love, the principal theme of the songs, played a major role in the economics of feelings and the identification it promoted, having the status of both "the most marketable of commodities and the absolute zenith of modern individualism". It was, however, an experience shared by both stars and their fans, by reason of the youthfulness of both.
