"You Never Can Tell" also occasionally referred to as "C'est La Vie" is a rock and roll song by Chuck Berry. It was composed while he was in prison for intent to commit a sex crime.[1] The song was originally released in 1964 on the album St. Louis to Liverpool, and has also been recorded or performed by Chely Wright, John Prine, New Riders of the Purple Sage, the Jerry Garcia Band,[2] Bruce Springsteen, Bob Seger and Emmylou Harris.
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The song describes a fictional wedding between a young couple and the events afterwards. Living in a modest apartment, the jobless young man finds work and, together with his spouse, they find prosperity. They use the money to expand their music collection and eventually purchase a family car to drive to New Orleans to celebrate their anniversary, where they had originally met. The chorus of the song is "'C'est la vie', say the old folks, 'it goes to show you never can tell'".[1]
Berry is renowned for his clever lyrics & original melodies, but "You Never Can Tell" has echoes of "Caribbean", released 10 years earlier by Mitchell Torok.
The song became briefly popular again for a time in 1994 after the release of the Quentin Tarantino film Pulp Fiction. The music was played for a contest at the fictional restaurant Jack Rabbit Slim's in which John Travolta as Vincent Vega and Uma Thurman as Mia Wallace danced for the contest's main prize. 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 50's French New Wave dance sequence feel".[1]
Nick Lowe has indicated this song was a source of inspiration for his song "I Knew The Bride (When She Used To Rock'n'Roll)", which has been recorded by Dave Edmunds, Status Quo and Lowe himself.