I do like me some chanson – some days I play nothing else. It beats reading Jean-Paul Sartre for transporting me back to that pays where I’ve spent so much happy time. Juliette Greco, Francoise Hardy, stubbly old perve Serge Gainsbourg, Sylvie Vartan…ça m’est égal..
This popped up today – Barbara doing La Femme d’Hector, words and music by Georges Brassens, from her album Barbara Chante Brassens et Brel. Perfect.
Any other faves? Let’s hear them.
Meanwhile Jacques Dutronc pays tribute to the future Arsenal manager.
https://youtu.be/kDCTleCWs44?si=rm7QulTczR0rSYne
Here’s a very useful translation of La femme d’Hector, complete with useful comments.
http://dbarf.blogspot.com/2013/07/la-femme-dhector.html
I’m with you on chanson, Mike – I have a playlist of all the chanson, café music and other French material in my collection – I love it!
A recent favourite – Pomplamoose
Yes! Of course being in love with the chanteuse is a big help.
Well, quite…
Where would you gents suggest an old warhorse like me should start if he wants to explore?
This playlist looks like a good place to start.
Then there’s the jazzier, “Hot Club” end of things…
Lovely stuff. I’ve just returned from a trip down a Tatiana rabbit-hole.
Then there’s the old warhorse himself end of things. Take your pick.
Another La Mer…
Sensationalle…A curious thing about this mob is that the personnel changes with every song.
@SteveT recommended Jane Birkin’s gorgeous version of this song on the “Remembering” thread.
Here’s Jane in a duet with Francoise Hardy who had a hit with it in 1968.
I just discovered it’s actually a cover of an American song, It hurts to say goodbye, which Serge Gainsbourg wrote French lyrics for!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comment_te_dire_adieu
La Belle France certainly does not have a monopoly on great chanson composers. I discovered this chap when we had that Canada thread.
Out of a multitude of cover versions, I’ll spare you Vera Lynn’s, and offer your Swedish chum and Abba-to-be Anni-Frid Lyngstad…
(Norwegian – Pedantic Ed.)
Touché.
It’s an interest version, KFD – but, for my money, I’d rather go with this:
I am very happy to agree with you on that @fitterstoke.
It’s amusing to compare Francoise’s delicacy, restraint and understatement with Dame Vera’s OTT bombast. Talk about a bargain basement Bond babe.
OK, I’m being a little unkind. But we were certainly doing things differently on our side of La Manche.
Let’s have some more Francoise!
I could be naughty and post the (banging) version of this Jimmy Somerville and June Miles-Kingston did in 1989, but it might be a bit O/T for this thread.
Well, @milkybarnick, a couple of days ago, I stumbled across Jimmy and June’s 1989 version and you are so right: it is absolutely superb.
Of course, those of us, (like me) who don’t speak much French can enjoy listening to chansons without worrying about the lyrics. But at the end of the day we’re going to miss out on rather a lot.
I thought this classic by Renaud, Mistral Gagnant, was about the wind of the same name.
I got that so wrong! They are a kind of sweets that he used to steal from the sweetshop!
https://lyricstranslate.com/en/mistral-gagnant-mistral-gagnant.html-1
“To sit on bench for 5 minutes alongside you,
To watch people as they go by,
To talk with you of good time that have gone or will comeback holding your hand and feeling your little fingers,
Giving food to idiotic pigeons
And faking kicks for fun,
To listen to laugh that cracks up the walls
But really heals my wounds,
To tell you how I was as a kid,
The wonderful sweets that we stole from the shop,
Car-en-Sac and Mints, one franc caramels,
and the Mistral Gagnants. (Mistral Gagnants being a type of sweets.)”
https://lyricstranslate.com
I hope this thread takes off. I could do with some French lessons!
He’s a new one to me. Not to Pomplemoose, fortunately…
Here’s Felix Leclerc, sounding for all the world like a Gallic Jake Thackeray.
Thackray.
We must have some Brel.
I’ve always enjoyed this one: Je suis un soir d’été (I am a summer evening).
And here’s a translation of the very literary lyrics.
https://impossiblepoems.blogspot.com/2014/11/jacques-brel-i-am-summer-evening.html
One more from JB while we’re at it: Vesoul.
The lyrics in English.
https://lyricsaround.com/en/jacques_brel/vesoul/
The lyrics in English plus notes on all the places mentioned.
And the accordionist:
“the outstanding accordion player in this song is Jean Corti (1929-2015)”
And of course Pomplemoose’s version of Vesoul was where I first fell in love with Nataly Dawn, her lucky husband and her brilliant gang of musos.
It’s a clever Pomplamoose idea to give a droll description of the song rather than scaring off new listeners with the French title.
The hits keep coming!
Une belle histoire, a preposterously catchy song by Michel Fugain, is on that Spotify list.
It’s been covered internationally several times.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Une_belle_histoire
I felt it was just crying out to be used in a film soundtrack!
I googled. Michel Fugain starred in a film, Un jour la fete, in 1975.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0327209/?ref_=nm_knf_t_4
But this song was not on the soundtrack,
Do we want to hear Une Belle histoire in Japanese? Of course we do!
That’s brilliant! Amusing to think of a coterie of chanson fans in Japan…
Difficult to choose.
Birkin’s Arabesque?
Piaf?
Tatiana?
French chanson for late at night after a glass or two of red.
Anyway here’s Nina’s and Brel’s Ne Me Quitte Pas.
I’m sure that Mike would not be too happy if I posted any whingeing poms on his thread.
However this Pomme, a young singer-songwriter from Lyons, is probably acceptable.
Singing here with Les Souers Boulay from Quebec.
That was a Nana Mouskouri cover. Here she is with one of her own songs.
Is this the sort of thing you are looking for?
Bof…
I enjoyed that snippet, Tigger.
It made me think that there must be several modern, more urban, Francophone artists who perform some songs which can be classified as chanson.
M C Solaar for example.
It’s been a few years since we heard “La France – Douze Points” at Eurovision.
Classy chansons just don’t score many points with the European viewers.
Sebastian Tellier’s song Divine, was a real breath of fresh air in 2008. He even sung in English. It lost out to Russia.
Very popular all over Europe regardless, he’s one to watch.
Here’s a more recent song.
Back in 1965, teenager France Gall. a ye-ye singer, represented Luxembourg in the ESC with Gainsbourg’s Poupee de cire, poupee de son and won. The start of an illustrious career.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France_Gall
Here’s from 1987 is her tribute to Ella Fitzgerald: Ella, elle l’a
The wonderful Nataly Dawn of Pomplamoose is not the only bi-lingual, American Francophile, chanteuse.
Jazz singer Stacey Kent loves France and they love her.
“Strikingly, like many American jazz musicians from Sidney Bechet onwards, she has gained particular fame and acceptance in France, her albums entering the pop charts and where, in 2009, she was awarded the title of Chevalier des Arts et Lettres. Kent is clearly a Francophile in return, and Raconte-moi finds her singing exclusively in French on this collection of new and more established songs.”
https://www.allaboutjazz.com/raconte-moi-stacey-kent-blue-note-records-review-by-bruce-lindsay
Here’s the title track.
Let’s treat ourselves to one more track from Stacey.
Not sure if this would count – but I think it has the correct feel…
This protest song by Georges Brassens popped up on the AW recently. It deserves a place here too.
It’s from 1953.
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Amoureux_des_bancs_publics
This translation is top notch:
“People who give dirty looks
Think that the green benches
You see on the sidewalks
Are made for people with bad legs or with pot-bellies
But that’s an absurdity
For if the truth be known
They’re there, as is well-known
To host, for a while, couples whose love has just begun.”
A top notch blogsite, well worth investigating!
http://brassenswithenglish.blogspot.com/2008/03/les-amoureux-des-bancs-publics-public.html
A couple of modern chansons from Quebec..
Les Cowboys Fringants
Coeur de pirate
If we’re doing a thread on chanson, naturally we should begin by honouring the greats of the past
But popular music sung in French is alive and kicking and I’m keen to discover what’s happening in this decade.
I’ve oogled and found that the French Ministry of Culture have an annual award ceremony: Les Victoires de la Musique. A bit like the Grammys.
These were this year’s nominees. I’ve never heard of most them either.
https://www.sortiraparis.com/en/what-to-see-in-paris/concerts-music-festival/articles/48893-victoires-de-la-musique-2023-discover-the-official-list-of-nominees
But this 2023 playlist can help put that right.
One artist I have heard is Le Grand Corps Malade. (The Big Sick Body)
Here’s SickBod doing a duet with Camille Lelouche. Classy.
Probably an introduction to the sound of chanson, at least to these ears was Jake Thackray.
Here’s his take on Brassens’ Le Gorille.
That is excellent, @hubert rawlinson. I was talking to a Francophile pal yesterday, wo commented that, because of his lyrics, Brassens is still very popular today.
Are there any other Anglophone artists who have been influenced by chanson?
Bowie recorded Brel’s Amsterdam. Grace Jones did an excellent disco version of La Vie En Rose. The Sex Pistols sung Comme D’habitude (via My Way).
I’ve been Googling and found some excellent introductions to chanson.
This one is very informative and is right up to date, rather than just wallowing in the glories of the past. Not that I’ve anything against a good wallow
https://relearnalanguage.com/famous-french-songs/
It mentions several modern megahits.
Stromae’s Alors on danse
And this magnificently OTT tearjerker by Indila which became an enormous hit.
Let’s not forget Desireless who reached No 5 in the UK charts with a song in French! Incroyable!
I think her hairdresser should take a smidgeon of credit.
Oh I love that Desireless record. Sounds like the soundtrack to an Amiga game (or one of those Eastern European demos you used to get on magazine covertapes to demonstrate how much you could get out of a ZX Spectrum).
Talking about Brel, does anyone remember Terry Jacks and his gushingly sentimental megahit, Seasons in the Sun?
Unbelievably, that was originally a Brel song, Le Moribond, about a dying man.
When Rod McKuen and then Terry Jacks translated it into English, they decided it was far too dark and morbid so they “lightened it up” a little. Dr Bowdler would have been proud of them!
Gone are the farewell to his unfaithful wife and her lover.
https://everything2.com/title/Le+Moribond
“Goodbye, Tony, I didn’t like you too much
Goodbye, Tony, I didn’t like you too much, you know
It’s killing me to be dying today
While you are so vigorous and full of life
And stronger even than boredom itself
Goodbye, Tony, I’m going to die
It’s hard to die in the Spring, you know
But I’m going to the flowers with peace in my heart
Because you were her Lover
I know you’ll take care of my wife when I’m gone”
For shame! This far down and unless I’ve missed it no mention for the formidable Dalida. An oversight now corrected.
My wife and I made a point of visiting her last resting place in Montmartre Cemetery which was festooned in floral tributes evidencing her place in French affections.
A photograph of my wife stood by Dalida’s grave is amongst the bits and bobs decorating the door of my refrigerator.
I’m afraid I couldn’t remember her name. I saw a clip of heron a television programme (BBC 4?) stunning voice. Thanks @pencilsqueezer.
Nice work @pencilsqueezer. Thanks a lot for bringing Dalida to our attention.
Her name rang but the feintest of bells for me You’ve certainly changed that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalida
What a megastar she was! But what a tremendous amount of tragedy there was in her life. One suicide after the other ending in her own.
Time to explore her back catalogue!
Crikey…four of her lovers committed suicide. Is this a record?
Ta Pencil, how could we forget? Here’s something she made with Alain Delon, whose main contribution to the proceedings seems to have been murmuring Frenchly and sexily.
Dalida was a huge star in France and judging by the sheer amount of floral tributes that are laid upon her grave daily it would seem that she is held in the same esteem and affection as Piaf whose last resting place at Père Lachaise similarly has floral tributes laid upon it on a daily basis.
William Sheller is a new one on me, but he seems to have the chanson thing down pat, with a hint of Elton John thrown in.
Just Bill and his piano and I was spellbound,@mikethep.
It’s an excellent, insightful song.
“Why are people in love
Always a bit the same?
When they have their problems
Well, there is nothing you can say, nothing you can do for them.
They are people in love.”
https://lyricstranslate.com/en/un-homme-heureux-happy-man.html
The lyrics in French:
And now in English:
https://lyricstranslate.com/en/un-homme-heureux-happy-man.html
I thought this comment by a YT listener was wonderful.
“C’était il y a 25 ans. Je reçois un appel sur mon mobile alors que je fais les courses dans une de ces petites superettes de station de ski. A l’autre de bout du téléphone, c’est elle. Elle est gênée : elle me demande de ne plus la recontacter, qu’elle n’est probablement pas celle que je cherche et qu’il vaut mieux que j’aille voir quelqu’un d’autre.
Le souvenir est vif car justement passait à ce moment dans le magasin cette magnifique chanson de William Sheller. Tellement triste à ce moment-là. Un coup de poignard dans le cœur.
Mais si ça ne vaut pas la peine, que j’y revienne, il faut me l’dire au fond des yeux… ».
Je l’ai quand même recontacté. On s’est finalement revus. On s’est mariés. On a aujourd’hui de beaux grands enfants. On vit heureux ensemble depuis plus de 25 ans…
« Quel que soit le temps que ça prenne, quel que soit l’enjeu, je veux être un homme heureux ».
Merci monsieur Sheller.”
I Google translated:
“That was 25 years ago. I get a call on my mobile while shopping in one of these small ski resort supermarkets. On the other end of the phone, it’s her. She is embarrassed: she asks me not to contact her again, that she is probably not the one I am looking for and that it is better for me to go see someone else.
The memory is vivid because precisely at that moment passed in the store this magnificent song of William Sheller. So sad at that moment. A stab in the heart.
But if it’s not worth it, let me come back, you have to tell me in the back of my eyes… ».
I contacted her anyway. We finally met again. We got married. Today we have beautiful big children. We have been living happily together for over 25 years…
“No matter how long it takes, no matter what is at stake, I want to be a happy man.”
Thank you Mr. Sheller.”
Two “protest chansons”.
Gilberto Gil from Brazil
Tiken Jah Fakoly from the Ivory Coast
Time out manage to come up with several surprises in their list of 20 Best Songs about Paris.
https://www.timeout.com/paris/en/music/best-paris-songs
Very Anglo-centric, but with songs by Elliot Smith, Edith Piaf, Jonathan Richmond, Little Dragon, Charles Trenet, Eartha Kitt and Grace Jones, among others, it’s worth a browse.
Doesn’t include Paris Paris from the album Paris by Malcom McLaren (featuring Catherine Deneuve)? Is poppycock.
I’m also a fan of Euphonic Traveller’s concept album, Loungin in Paris, all about a weekend trip to Paris.
Excellent choices, Gary. That Euphonic Traveller album is wonderfully soothing and relaxing.
It reminded me a little of the excellent Gotan Project from 20 years ago who combined tango with electronica.
Wikipedia was helpful in understanding the rise of the chanson:
“During the 50s and 60s, it was the golden age of Chanson Française: Juliette Gréco, Mireille Mathieu, Georges Brassens, Jacques Brel, Gilbert Bécaud, Monique Serf (Barbara), Léo Ferré, Charles Aznavour and Alain Barrière. The Yéyé style was popular in the 1950s and 60s with Sheila, Claude François and Françoise Hardy.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_of_France
Léo Ferré was a new name for me: this is a wonderful song.
I stumbled across an academic paper:
The mediating of chanson: French identity and the myth Brel-Brassens-Ferré
https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=fc71216e96437fcbe32fad86253803be3cecc5fa
“Jacques Brel, Georges Brassens and Léo Ferré are three emblematic figures of
post-war French song, who have been seen by critics, journalists, and the public, as the
epitome of chanson, and more generally of ‘Frenchness’. The starting point of this study
is the observation that the legacy of the systematic association of Brel, Brassens, and
Ferré – crystallised in Cristiani’s 1969 interview and in Jean-Pierre Leloir’s photograph
of the interview – has enjoyed a prosperity which seems disproportionate to the actual
relevance of the comparison between the three artists. In 1969, the three singers were
significant figures of French song, but they were not the only ones.”
I’ve dipped into it and it’s rather well-written and full of detail about the politics, music industry and society of that time.
https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/brexit-news-charles-trenet-great-european-lives-french-actor-singer-songwriter-42078/
That is an excellent profile of Trenet, @hubert rawlinson. I loved the story about him going into a Manhattan bar and hearing La Mer.
“It’s a measure of Trenet’s standing in France that on his death in 2001 at the age of 87, radio stations across the country cleared their schedules to launch lengthy and impassioned tributes. The following day’s issue of Le Monde included no less than eight pages of coverage and president Jacques Chirac led a range of politicians and celebrities in eulogising the singer in heroic terms. There was something unquestionably, unshakably French about Charles Trenet.”
A national hero and no mistake.
He’s up there with these three guys, whose get-together I mentioned yesterday.
Here’s a French documentary about them and that photo.
With the rise of Dylan, the Fabs, the Stones etc etc, the French chanson singers of the 50s and 60s were making a stand for Francophone musical culture.
You can’t more quintessentially French (OK, Belgian in Brel’s case) than the songs of these three titans.
Have some more on Dalida.
https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/brexit-news-europe-news-tragic-life-of-dalida-7918260/
Not really chanson but two favourites of mine
Nice work,@Twang! Two very interesting talents.
I wouldn’t worry about them not being “chanson”: it seems to be a very loose category.
A couple of modern favourites from me.
Franco-German duo: Poom.
Feufollet from Lafayette, Louisiana who I hear first heard on a Word sampler.
Well @Twang. Sadrine has made two fine album. But is her day job that keeps her busy as both an actor and now a director.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandrine_Kiberlain
An interview with her.
Ooh thanks I’ll watch that later. She’s fab. If you don’t speak French I suggest you find the translated lyrics to that song. Those French girls!
Mon Dieu she’s a cool customer.
This morning’s French discovery is Yves Jamait from Dijon. I like the Hot Club feel to this song.
I’m keen as mustard!
I can’t we’ve got this far without mentioning the splendid Negresses Vertes.
Here’s another Francophile combo: Stereolab.
Wonderful YT comment from @GallagherMichael
“We’re going to sing in a way so cool we almost look bored, blast you with French fuzz punk Krautrock and vintage synths, and have the audacity to call it Disko. Absolute class.”
Laetitia Sadier is actually French.
An interesting band.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereolab
Interesting to read what the French music press make of her.
http://www.arbobo.fr/laetitia-sadier-silencio-interview/
When I was at school, the only French mag we had access to was Paris Match.
https://addict-culture.com/laetitia-sadier-source-ensemble/
Modern schoolkids can read the French equivalent of the NME.
https://www.soundofviolence.net/articles/album/2382/laetitia_sadier_the_trip.html
Talking of which, NME’s notorious bête noire, Nick Kent has lived a very healthy life in Paris since 1988.
https://onlyrockandroll.london/2012/03/12/so-you-want-to-be-a-rocknroll-star-an-interview-with-nick-kent/
I fell to wondering, as you do, whether there was anything resembling chanson going on in Australia. Apparently not – though I did find a French version of the unofficial national anthem, I Still Call Australia Home. Better than the original by Peter Allen I thought.
That’s a darned interesting question,@mikethep.
I am now asking it about Sweden.
We have something called “visor”, which literally means “songs”.
Usually sung by a guitar-toting singer -songwriter who sings their own songs in Swedish. There’s a lot of emphasis on the lyrics and story telling.
This goes back to the great national poet, Carl-Michael Bellman. (4 February 1740 – 11 February 1795) . Wiki describes him as a “songwriter, composer, musician, poet, and entertainer.”
More recently, Cornelis Vreeswijk (1937 – 1987) was a gigantic figure in every way. Singer-songwriter, poet and actor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelis_Vreeswijk
Here he is live, fairly soon before his death. What a card! He performs one verse in Dutch for his countrymen in the audience.
Behold our shadow, look, Movitz my brother
How it’s encompassed by darkness
How gold and velvet, in the shovel, over there
shifts to gravel and tatters
Charon waves from his rushing river
as does then, three times, the grave digger
no-more your grape will you clasp
Therefore, Movitz, come help me lever
a headstone for our sister!
So went to rest, from brawls and ball
Troublemaker Lofberg, your wife
There, to the grass, long necked and slender
Is yet where you turn your eye
From the Tanto toll-house she parted today
And with her, all merry games
Who shall now the bottle command?
Thirsty was she and so thirsty am I;
Thirsty are all of us.
Politically engaged, notorious for his bohemian lifestyle, prolific, charismatic…”Wiki makes an important point.
“He also became an important musical interpreter of the works of other people, recording the songs of Carl Michael Bellman, Evert Taube, and Lars Forssell. His fresh, bluesy renderings of Bellman and Taube, who had up to then been classics belonging to the “harmless” tradition that Vreeswijk despised, were artistic and commercial successes which extended his fanbase. The choice of Bellman was significant: Bellman’s lively, romantic, pastoral, drinking and sometimes bawdy songs gained Vreeswijk the reputation of being a drunken womaniser, with the association of being “something of a Bellman himself”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Michael_Bellman
I would be interested to hear what @locust has to say about the similarities between chanson and visor.
There are quite a few points in common between Bellman and Robbie Burns.
Maybe his work is nearer to chansons than anything we have in England?
Ireland and Wales might be considered too.
When asked for “French Vissinger”, look wh Wiki comes up with!
https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kategori:Franska_viss%C3%A5ngare
It’s easy to see points of comparison between Brassens and Cornelis.
Crikey – MC Solaar, Les Negresses Vertes and Stereolab are all chanson. My brain hurts…
Sorry @fentonsteve. It’s not easy, is it?
The Krautish Stereolab are not chanson but Laetitia can be.
With his ingenious wordplay, Solaar certainly should be considered.
The Negresses with their catchy, very Gallic tunes and rather a Hot Club feel are not such an outlandish choice.
How about this lot? I give you Therapie taxi.
Witty, provocative, tuneful… Brel would have approved.
Let’s celebrate 69 comments avec.
What a wag you are Hubert! The 69th comment. Your timing is an impeccable as Serge’s actually releasing that song in 1969.
And all long before Stephin Merritt and the Magnetic Fields released the magnificent 69 Love Songs. He’s another very witty chap.
Wikipedia provides the background.
“The album was originally conceived as a music revue. Stephin Merritt was sitting in a gay piano bar in Manhattan, listening to the pianist’s interpretations of Stephen Sondheim songs, when he decided he ought to get into theatre music because he felt he had an aptitude for it. “I decided I’d write one hundred love songs as a way of introducing myself to the world. Then I realized how long that would be. So I settled on sixty-nine. I’d have a theatrical revue with four drag queens. And whoever the audience liked best at the end of the night would get paid.””
An attempt to find a decent translation of that song led me to this excellent article about how the late Jane Birkin became a standard bearer of her ex-lover’s songbook.
https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20170810-jane-birkin-reinvents-serge-gainsbourg-songs
“Although he has had a growing cult following since the 1990s, the fact that he is not more widely appreciated amongst Anglophone audiences is perhaps because there has been no-one to do for Gainsbourg what Mort Shuman and Scott Walker did for Jacques Brel, offering an entry point to his work with exceptional translations and performances that created stunning versions in their own right.”
……
Birkin’s desire to find new ways to interpret his music is borne out of gratitude. “I knew I owed it to him. If I could take him round the world and make people understand the extraordinary writer he was, then a little of what he gave to me I could give back,” she explains.
However, she is aware that her wish to bring his work to new audiences is hampered by a lack of comprehension. “If you don’t live in France, I’m not sure people quite understand the beauty of his poems. Variations sur Marilou is the most erotic poem you could have. But I don’t think they understand.”
Gainsbourg himself had always known that English versions of his songs could bring greater recognition and their absence frustrated him. “He didn’t understand why they didn’t use his music and do covers because they did with Aznavour.”
Here’s a trailer for her album Le Symphonique.
And one of the songs.
Back to your question, @mikethep. Is there anything resembling chanson going on in Australia?
So who have we got for artists resembling chanson? Robbie Burns, Cornelis Vreeswijk, Bellman..and..???
Can I throw in Michael Marra and Patti Smith? Two very literary (in the best way) songwriters who have poems, autobiographies, plays under their belts.
Here’s they are performing a Burns poem together in a moment which to my mind is very near to the spirit of chanson.
Are there/have there been any singing poets in Australia? I’d definitely nominate David McComb of the Triffids, and Robert Forster and Grant McLellan from the Go Betweens.
And then how about Nick Cave? Some songs definitely. Not Grinderman though!
Back to Europe, @Gary will doubtless confirm that Italy has many poetic singer-songwriters of a chanson-like feeling.
Lucio Dalla is an excellent example. Here he is singing about Caruso.
And the lyrics in English:
https://dailyitalianwords.com/lucio-dalla-caruso-italian-lyrics-and-english-translation/
Poetry is the key word.
Off piste for a moment.
For several days I’ve been trying to remember the name of either this Glasgow band or of their wonderful song about remembering Paris.
I finally tracked them down.
Lola in Slacks – Trocchi’s Canal
“Fronted by petite chanteuse Louise Reid, Lola in Slacks exude the garage swagger of The Velvet Underground spiked with the bold confidence and freedom of Tim Buckley.” (Late night from Glasgow)
Pomplamoose and mikethep have proved to be very winning combination for this thread. This evening I’ve been enjoying the dynamic duo’s French albums.
Souad Massi certainly should be filed under chanson. However, as she’s from Algeria and usually sings in Arabic you may want some translations. Not essential she has a beautiful voice.
She has lived in Paris for many years now.
Here she is singing in French,
And now Tiny Desking.
NPR’s comment reminds us that she’s not had it so easy as female singer-songwriter.
“A soulful yet steely singer-songwriter from Algeria charts her own course, from withstanding death threats in her native country to selling hundreds of thousands of records around the globe.”
Time for the Chedids, a family where the chanson tradition has passed on from a father, Louis Chedid to an even more successful son, Matthieu, (usually known as -M-).
Not only has Matthieu been a very successful singer in his own right, he is also in a band with my great favourite, kora maetro, Toumani Diabate and his son, Sidiki.
Late last night, I suddenly remembered a very catchy French song, Ainsi.-soit-il, from 1981 by Louis Chedid. I must have picked the album up in a chazza and taken a shine to it.
Sadly, I can’t find a decent translation of the lyrics. It’s a song abut the passing of our lives. Pure chanson!
Back in 1981, there was no Wikipedia, to find out more about the singer. Shame! I now discover that Louis’s an interesting chap.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Chedid
Born in Egypt in 1948, as a teenager, he was a fan of Django Reinhardt.
“His first, autobiographical novel – 40 Berges Blues – was published in 1992.”
He’s “the composer of Pierre-Dominique Burgaud’s “Le Soldat Rose” (The Pink Soldier, 2006), a fairytale musical whose songs have been interpreted by singers including -M-, Vanessa Paradis, Jeanne Cherhal, Francis Cabrel, Alain Souchon and Bénabar.”
Still going strong. Spotify informs me that he has some concerts coming up in Villars-de-Dombes and Poissy! Book now to avoid disappointment!
On to Matthieu Chedid who wrote the music for the excellent animated film Un monstre à Paris.
He’s famed for his wacky, on-stage alter-ego -M-. (it’s a pun on his initial M and the word for love, Aime)
Here he is live at the Victoires Award Ceremony in 2018 with the two Diabates and Fatoumata Diawara.
There’s a lovely moment where Toumani’s face is lit up with an enormous smile. Now he’s a pop star!
When I saw him with Sidiki at Roskilde, he joked about how his son is filling football stadiums at home in Mali while his more “classical” music is for the oldies.
Matthieu is a major celeb in France. He’s the former partner of Audrey (Amelie from Montmartre) Tatou.
I’m delighted to add the wonderful Amelie-Les Crayons to this thread.
She has a certain “Je ne sais pas” about her!
“Joie de vivre!!
I like her a lot.
https://www.amelielescrayons.com/amelielescrayons_histoire.html
Wonderful, KFD, what a discovery! Plenty of albums on Spotify too… 🙂
Thís thread should just run and run @mikethep. There’s so much to discover.
Back to what Jane Birkin said about Gainsbourg:
“Gainsbourg himself had always known that English versions of his songs could bring greater recognition and their absence frustrated him. “He didn’t understand why they didn’t use his music and do covers because they did with Aznavour.”
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/oct/02/charles-aznavour-10-of-the-best
I confess I know little about Charley A. However, as Alexis P comments, he was seen as Grandma-friendly tosh in the UK,
“In the UK at least, Charles Aznavour, who has died aged 94, is largely embedded in the popular imagination as a light entertainment phenomenon. It’s the context in which he appeared on British TV in the late 60s and 70s: BBC specials called things like Love from A to Z, or spots on variety shows. His two big British hits, the syrupy The Old Fashioned Way and the impassioned She, seemed reactionary and wilfully old-fashioned: like Perry Como’s And I Love You So, or Peters and Lee’s Welcome Home, they were part of a wave of grandma-friendly MOR that crashed awkwardly around the glam and Philly soul records in the early 70s charts, a reminder that a lot of Britain’s record buyers were old enough to remember a halcyon world where rock’n’roll didn’t exist.”
But it seems like it’s time I dug deeper.
Alexis has convinced me I need to listen a little more carefully.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/oct/01/from-drag-queens-to-dead-marriages-charles-aznavour-was-far-from-easy-listening
Popularly known as Charles Aznavoice, IIRC.
avec un siffleur
I can’t prove it, but family lore has it that my Mother’s Uncle by marriage wrote the music for what would become La Vie En Rose. But had to sell it on for cash. He wrote others that are known, but I can’t bring them to mind.
He was Walter Hambock. He also did gigs for Adolph back in the 30s.
Watching the Chanel documentary mention was made of this song and a possible source of her nom du conception de robe.
Sacre Bleu, @hubert rawlinson! You really are on a French roll. A croissant even!
Contrebrassens and Cupid followed by a delightful morceau of Coco.
Magnifique!
After your comments YT suggested this for us
What can we say except.. Merci Beaucoup?
It’s great fun.
Alas no videos are showing up in the thread but I take it this is Horrible Histories Coco Chanel song.
Sailing past Notre Dame in my croissanty boat.
Coco Chanel in Horrible Histories! Well I never!
Naughty old Serge wrote the soundtrack for a film called Strip-Tease in 1962, in which he apparently makes an uncredited appearance sharing a piano with Big Joe Turner. Juliet Greco recorded the title song in typically seductive fashion.
Interestingly, the song demo was recorded by harmonium-botherer Nico – her first recorded appearance. She got bumped from the final soundtrack in favour of La Greco.
What a discovery!
I checked on IMDB. The reason she did that demo was that she starred in the film.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057536/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
Nico was already quite a name before she recorded with the VU.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nico
Going seriously off-piste for a second….
One of my favourite books about rock music ever is “Nico, Songs They Never Play on the Radio” by James Young, who was her keyboard player.
Oddly enough, it was given to me by your brother-in-law in Sussex, @mikethep.
Anyway, I just found an interview with James Young. A very fascinating chap with a waspish wit.
https://web.archive.org/web/20110811205904/http://www.btinternet.com/~stephen.yarwood/JY_int.htm
Hubert and Tubert is a very successful combination, @hubertrawlinson.
Let’s have one more from Montpellier: La Bise a Madame playing a song by Charles Aznavour.
George Brassens’s wikipedia page is an interesting read. He has fans all over the world who sing his songs in many different languages.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Brassens
Jake Thackray was his greatest fan in the UK.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2015/sep/15/cult-heroes-jake-thackray-chansoneur-comic-songwriter
This article mentions that the two men met and became friends.
“The Yorkshireman even persuaded his mentor to play his only ever gig outside the francosphere, at the Sherman theatre in Cardiff in 1974, with Thackray as support.”
@DuCo01 is a great JT fan and is the one who put him on the map for me.
Yesterday evening, I discovered to my delight that there is a French punk Brassens tribute band!
Brassens not dead.
A punk band who has a sign language interpreter on stage translating the lyrics! Never seen that before!
I’ve just listened to a whole album by Contrebrassens. Definitely one of the great finds from this thread. Pauline Dupuy is a fine singer.
Grand work @hubertrawlinson!
Sacre Bleu! A YT channel called Froggydelight which does sessions-
It’s a web magazine about (mostly) French culture in French which looks well worth exploring.
http://www.froggydelight.com/
I could waste a lot of time browsing there.
This thread is the gift that keeps on giving.
I was trying to find out why it was that, when Georges Brassens gave his one and only UK concert in 1974, it was at the Sherman theatre in Cardiff.
I haven’t found the answer yet but I did find this obituary for one of the grande dames of chanson: Catherine Sauvage.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/obituary-catherine-sauvage-1153743.html
Who would not want to hear her after reading this?
“SHE bites her public” was George Brassens’ early tribute to the mordant talent of a great chanson singer, Catherine Sauvage. She preferred to be known not as a chanteuse (with its overtones of British music-hall comic parlance “shantoose”) but as an interprete – which for her meant much more than mere “interpreter”.
This was a professional title she well deserved, for she did not just sing the words of her lyrics, she injected them with a special personal force and bathed them in a halo of private emotional reference that made even the most familiar refrains resound with a new magic. She learnt this interpretative technique from American masters of the art like Anita O’Day, Mel Torme and Ella Fitzgerald. Her only real rival in post-war Paris was the sublime Juliette Greco.”
The story of the Brassens’ concert is in the Jake Thackray biography. I’ll try and dig it out.
Hope this helps @Kaisfatdad
http://babylonwales.blogspot.com/2007/09/georges-brassens-in-cardiff.html
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2006/jan/16/guardianobituaries.highereducation
Thanks a lot hubert, I just found this which I suspect covers the same ground as your two articles. What team work!
http://www.projetbrassens.eclipse.co.uk/pages/georgesbrassens.html
“Brassens in Britain
Brassens had never performed outside France until, at the invitation of his friend, French lecturer Colin Evans, he visited Wales to present one concert at Cardiff’s Sherman Theatre in 1973. The BBC filmed the performance and in 1975 broadcast excerpts within a programme about Brassens’ life and work.”
“Colin Evans has kindly allowed us to reproduce here his introduction to Georges Brassens from the programme notes for that concert in 1973.
Programme notes
Sherman Theatre Cardiff, October 28th 1973
“Every night for three months last winter Brassens filled to overflowing the Bobino theatre in Montparnasse. (1,400 seats). I was there on the last night. Outside people queued in vain. Inside they stood five deep at the back of the theatre. Brassens appears after the interval, and stands by a wooden chair, his right hand making embarrassed slowing down movements when the applause doesn’t stop. The lighting is flat. Then he puts a foot on the chair and begins his first song.
“A theatre is not the lighting and the sound equipment but the hush that falls when a large number of individuals is fused into a group, concentrating on another human being’s voice and on a form of language which both is and is not their own.
“At midnight people pour out into the Rue de la Galté. As Giraudoux says about the effect that good theatre has on an audience: “Like a warm iron on sheets, a style has passed over them, they are all crumpled by the week’s work and now they are all smooth.”
“Brassens is quite simply the greatest living poet-singer. He only appears in public every three years, each time with just ten new songs. His words are the result of months of writing and rewriting. He commands a vast range of vocabulary and metre. Since his schooldays he has been steeped in what he calls the “real” poets, from Villon to Valéry. But however far he moves into literature his language is always rooted in the rich soil of everyday usage and he stands firmly in the age-old tradition of irreverent popular art. His music, varied, inventive, is the vehicle for the poetry as music always has been in a popular, oral tradition.
“He radiates integrity, wholeness. We are surrounded by electronic artefacts and synthetic creations, but here is a live human being speaking of familiar things, love and friendship, old age and death, with humour and without sentimentality, always saying less than what he is feeling, presenting an imaginary world and imaginary characters which we still recognise. This is poetry with a human face.
“Brassens has never before agreed to sing outside France where he has his roots and his language. We are privileged that he should have broken this rule to sing to us in the Sherman tonight.”
Colin Evans
I’ve just read the Colin Evans obituary, @hubertrawlinson. What a fascinating bloke!
Couldn’t find the BBC footage from Cardiff but here’s Georges live.
Yet another discovery: the endlessly experimental Barb Jungr made an album called Chanson: The Space In Between, which contains songs by the usual suspects like Brel, Leo Ferre, Henri Crolla, plus contemporary chansons by the likes of Elvis Costello and Jungr herself. It’s a fascinating album, beautifully sung and played. Here’s Brel’s Les Marquises.
A new name for me. Barb is definitely a chanteuse.
Her most recent album is called Bob, Brel and Me.
https://www.allaboutjazz.com/bob-brel-and-me-barb-jungr-absolute-review-by-john-eyles
“Brel’s “Jacky,” in a new translation by Robb Johnson with lyrics as attention-grabbing as Scott Walker’s 1967 version.”
Alas the videos no longer work, however un panier for @mikethep
Eliza Carthy has just posted about this.
https://www.folkradio.co.uk/2023/09/new-release-olivia-chaney-six-french-songs/?fbclid=IwAR2aUtfvg8t4eh2zBXzJsiXsSYEgB829R5bFokgXfmnVBSlHy0sNLBW1bs0
Even earlier chanson.
Ms Chaney is quite a discovery!
Once again, @hubert rawlinson, you open a fascinating door, providing us with the chance to discover a whole new magic kingdom.
Truly, you are the White Rabbit of the Afterword!
And Olivia is the Queen of Hearts!
I recall dancing to that tune at ceilidhs during my morris dance days.
This has reminded me of a few years ago at a French musette concert and there was mention of Plaisir d’amour a popular French love song composed in 1784 by Jean-Paul-Égide Martini which was the basis for Elvis’ Can’t Help Falling in Love
Old Martini wrote a very fine tune there! Quite understandably, there are many fine versions of it. @hubert rawlinson.
Olivia Chaney’s Six French Songs is quite superb. Thank you once again! I’m now exploring her back catalogue.
YouTube keeps serving me up more stuff. Here’s Bigflo & Oli, with Les Gens Tristes (acoustic version). The original is much more trippity-hoppity, but this fits right in.
Thanks @mikethep! That is superb!
This thread just keeps delivering!
You are quite right about YT ‘s AI working out what kind of music one likes and then delivering more. And with all the wonders of Francophone pop to choose from, it’s not such a difficult task!
And we’ve scarcely looked at chansons from Francophone Canada.
I discovered Bon Enfant on this list.
https://www.cbc.ca/music/10-best-canadian-francophone-albums-of-2019-1.5394081
From this morning’s Observer. Serge’s home, now opened for the first time in 30 years has already become a big hit.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/oct/01/a-salon-a-studio-a-brothel-inside-serge-gainsbourgs-paris-home?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
My stepson and I were so ahead of the curve in 2010. Couldn’t go inside though.
You are ALWAYS ahead of the curve, Hubert! Great photo.
Alex Petridis has done an excellent list of 20 songs from the SG songbook. What an excellent journalist he is!
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/apr/13/serge-gainsbourgs-20-greatest-songs-ranked
mikethep I’m afraid KFD.
But I shall have to visit one day.
Oh dear. I thought the photo didn’t look too much like you. Sorry Mike.
Sorry to lower the tone but I’ve just remembered these.
This one I played to my French exchange student, there was considerable misunderstanding.
As Hubert has commented, this thread has become rather heavily loaded with clips-
Only one thing for it! Chanson – Volume Two!
All far too enjoyable to call it a day!