The world was a different place when the Righteous Brothers sang their classic “You’ve lost that lovin’ feelin’” in 1964, 50 years ago. Not better, not worse, just different. Europe is certainly different now to how it was 50 years ago, but it is debatable — certainly following recent and ongoing events on the eastern edge of the continent, notably in Russia, Ukraine and Turkey — whether it’s better.

Just five years later, in 1969, Peter Sarstedt sang “Where do you go to, my lovely?” That song is actually as European as the founding fathers of the European Union could wish: a veritable diaspora about a fictional girl from Naples who lives in Paris (and about a real girl who Sarstedt fell in love with in Vienna but who sadly died in a hotel fire); numerous references to contemporary creative types like Marlene Dietrich, Zizi Jeanmaire, Picasso, Sacha Distel and the Rolling Stones; written in Copenhagen; and recorded in London.

We see this diaspora �