In the song ‘Where do you go to my Lovely?’, it turns out that the subject of the song grew up poor in the back streets of Naples. In which case, how likely is she to have been given such a French name? On the other hand, if she has adopted the name to suit her ‘Jet Set’ lifestyle, why doesn’t the singer use her real name when he confronts her (for what he knows will be the last time)? Would that not be artistically more powerful, especially if he’d mentioned her new name earlier on in the song?
Presumably ‘Marie Claire’ isn’t pretending to be French - her accent would be a giveaway and anyway being Italian would surely not be a handicap on the jet-set circuit?
The point never occurred to me, but she has clearly made her life in France, and, in essence, taken on a new identity; but yes, I guess the singer should have known her best by her original, Italian name.
Personally I’ve always heard it with a slightly sarcastic (I don’t know if that’s the right word - taunting? confrontational? angry? hurt?) tone: “Look into my face, “Marie-Claire”, and remember just who you are”. As in, your name isn’t Marie-Claire and this isn’t the life you were heading for when we knew each other, but you seem to have fully forgotten that and it’s about time you remembered. Speaking as someone who has changed their name and their life, and has had almost this said in almost this tone of voice, it’s always made sense to me.
And I always believed the story about it being about Sophia Loren, though it’s apparently not true. Oh well. I love this song and it was one of the first things I learnt to play on the guitar, many years ago.