"C'est la Vie" is a pop song by Irish girl group B*Witched. It served as their debut single and the lead single from their self-titled debut studio album (1998). Written by band members Edele Lynch, Keavy Lynch, Lindsay Armaou, and Sinéad O'Carroll, Ray "Madman" Hedges, Martin Brannigan and Tracy Ackerman, it was released by Epic and Glowworm Records on 25 May 1998.
The song reached number one on the charts in various countries around the world, including the United Kingdom, Ireland and New Zealand. In the process, B*Witched became the youngest girl group ever to have a UK number one. In the United States, "C'est la Vie" reached number nine on the Billboard Hot 100. In 1999, it was nominated for "Best Song Musically and Lyrically" in the Ivor Novello Awards. The accompanying music video for the song features the four girls dancing around a lush green field full of bright flowers with a puppy as they playfully tease a teenage boy.
"C'est la Vie" was written by B*Witched, Ray "Madman" Hedges, Martin Brannigan, and Tracy Ackerman. The song features many cheeky double entendres; the group commented in 2013 that "it went over children's heads, but the parents got the innuendos. It was perfect for everyone."
Chuck Taylor of Billboard wrote, "It's catchy as all get-out, has a chorus that lingers like poison ivy, and adds unlimited spoonfuls of zip spin after spin". Taylor considered that the song would be successful in the United States, but that recent trends had turned against uptempo pop music. He recommended the song and the album to fans of Britney Spears or Cleopatra. In 1999, the song was nominated for "Best Song Musically and Lyrically" at the Ivor Novello Awards. Billboard named the song number 97 on their list of 100 Greatest Girl Group Songs of All Time.
"C'est la Vie" debuted at number one on the UK Singles Chart on 31 May 1998 and remained at the top the following week. It also went to number one in the group's home country of Ireland, as well as in New Zealand. The song went to number nine on the US Billboard Hot 100 in the week of 17 April 1999 and number six on the Australian ARIA Singles Chart. It went Platinum in Australia for sales of more than 70,000 copies. By September 2017, more than 927,000 copies of the single had been sold in the UK.
The music video for the song was filmed in April 1998 and directed by Alison Murray, who later also directed the UK video for "Rollercoaster". It begins with the four girls lying on the ground in a field of daisies on a sunny day. A dog is introduced into the clip next to one of the girls and the quartet then begin dancing and singing to a teenage boy in a treehouse. The girls then tie the boy to a tree and the dog chases toward him before he is bombarded with lipstick kiss marks all over his face. The boy is freed from the tree and the girls hose him with water and begin performing an Irish reel before lying back down in the field where they began.
UK CD1
UK CD2 and Australian CD single
UK cassette single and European CD single
US 7-inch single
US maxi-CD single
Japanese CD single
Credits are lifted from the B*Witched album booklet.
Studio
Personnel