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You Never Can Tell (song)

"You Never Can Tell"
You Never Can Tell - Chuck Berry.jpg
Single by Chuck Berry
from the album St. Louis to Liverpool
B-side "Brenda Lee"
Released August 1964
Format 7" single
Recorded 1964
Genre Rock and roll
Length 2:43
Label Chess
Writer(s) Chuck Berry
Producer(s) Leonard Chess, Philip Chess
Chuck Berry singles chronology
"No Particular Place to Go"
(1964)
"You Never Can Tell"
(1964)
"Promised Land"
(1964)
"(You Never Can Tell) C'est La Vie"
(You Never Can Tell) C'est La Vie - Emmylou Harris.jpg
Single by Emmylou Harris
from the album Luxury Liner
B-side "Hello Stranger"
Released February 2, 1977
Format 7" single
Genre Rockabilly
Length 3:27
Label Warner Bros.
Writer(s) Chuck Berry
Producer(s) Brian Ahern
Emmylou Harris singles chronology
"Light of the Stable"
(1976)
"(You Never Can Tell) C'est La Vie"
(1977)
"Making Believe"
(1977)

"You Never Can Tell", also known as "C'est La Vie" or "Teenage Wedding", is a song written by Chuck Berry. It was composed in the early 1960s while Berry was in federal prison for violating the Mann Act. Released in 1964 on the album St. Louis to Liverpool and the follow-up single to Berry's final Top Ten hit of the 1960s: "No Particular Place to Go", "You Never Can Tell" reached #14 becoming Berry's final Top 40 hit until "My Ding-a-Ling" in 1971. A 1978 Top Ten C&W hit for Emmylou Harris, the song has also been recorded or performed by Chely Wright, John Prine, New Riders of the Purple Sage, the Jerry Garcia Band,Bruce Springsteen, and Bob Seger.

The song tells of the wedding of two teenagers and their lifestyle afterward. Living in a modest apartment, the young man finds work and they begin to enjoy relative prosperity. Eventually they purchase a " jitney" (an automobile modified for high performance) and travel to New Orleans, where their wedding had taken place, to celebrate their anniversary. Each verse ends with the refrain, "'C'est la vie,' say the old folks, 'it goes to show you never can tell.'" The melody was influenced by Mitchell Torok's 1953 hit "Caribbean".

The song briefly became popular again after the 1994 release of the film Pulp Fiction, directed and co-written by Quentin Tarantino. The music was played for a "Twist contest" in which Vincent Vega (John Travolta) and Mia Wallace (Uma Thurman) competed (and were the only contestants shown in the film). The music added an evocative element of sound to the narrative and Tarantino said that the song's lyrics of "Pierre" and "Mademoiselle" gave the scene a "uniquely '50s French New Wave dance sequence feel".


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