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[parispundit]

They are just singing the songs of their youth, pretending that they themselves haven't changed

[dellaroux]

<<L'internationale>>, as a political song, I get, of course.

But I never heard that was true of <<temps des cerises>>.

I've used it for years in hotels and restaurants, at least some of whose guests are francophones, and no-one ever mentioned it.

Is it the color red? Or what's the link?

(Of course now I won't be able to get the thing out of my head!..thank you very much!)

:--}

(And should I be watching out for <<Copains d'abord>> next?)

[frenchdoctor]

Oh please. I can easily imagine François Hollande clinching the AK47 he keeps in his closet and launching the first attack against the evil forces of capitalism. He is an ENA alumni, after all. Hasta siempre !

Parispundit, my friend. I notice that, talking of Sarkozy, you didn't criticize him the way any academic should. You didn't say he was Pétain, Hitler, Pinochet, Lucifer, Thatcher, Bush an Big Brother. I suspect that your eyes weren't full of the righteous tears that the sheer evilness of his totalitarian regime should provoke. You didn't even say that Sarkozy is propagating the flu on purpose.

If you want an academic career in France, you'll need to acquire a few local reflexes.


Dellaroux :

It's a beautiful song, indeed. Le "Temps des Cerises" isn't revolutionary in itself, but was used as a rally song by the insurgents during the "Commune" of Paris in 1871. It became the unofficial anthem of the Socialist Party. Note : the french socialists aren't really socialist. They're more liberal, in the US sense. They use this song since it's much softer than the "Internationale", which is a plainly communist and revolutionary song. Nonetheless, the socialists sometimes sing the "Internationale" as well, when they need to draw far-left votes to them.

The French love political songs. I guess it's part of our romantic nature. The lecture of Finkielkraut (see link above), if I'm not mistaken, was interrupted by kids singing "le chant des partisans," the anthem of the Resistance. To see 2009 kids, students at Sciences-po -- with cell-phones in their pockets and a Playstation linked to a HD home-movie theater in their bedroom -- sing "le chant des partisans" is of course plain ludicrous. Ha, the foolishness of youth ! Poor, poor, poor Parispundit, who has to teach them a little bit of history.

Anyway, the "most French" French song is probably "les feuilles mortes" :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWfsp8kwJto

I also love the songs written by Pierre Delanoë. "L'Eté Indien" still got it, even 30 years later :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIElXj0ZKlk

Same for "si tu n'existais pas" (and guess who's playing the trumpet ?) :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuBwReAkXGI

And this one, well, everybody knows it by heart :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtWLLQTDXAw&feature=fvst


No one on earth knows how to write love songs like the French, and I'm freakin' proud of it !

[frenchdoctor]

Ok now, if I start talking about that, I won't stop. But I should not overlook Michel Berger.

"Quelques mots d'amour" il manque quelqu'un près de moi... :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDf4_YvfAtg

"La minute de silence" écoute ce qu'il reste de nous, d'immobile et debout... :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_d5VeB35nFA

Recommencer là où le monde a commencé... :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1Db_iJdnUo

One of his songs, in English, by the excellent Peter Kingsbery :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUPGZipFJIk

And, of course, j'aurais voulu être un artiiiiiiste... :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j318ccgaNnk

[dellaroux]

Oh, great, I needed some new pieces to work on!!!!

I play and sing J. Clerc's Fais-moi and several things of Piaf's...L'accordeoniste,(de rigeur) Hymne, Rien de Rien, Vie en Rose...Mouskouri, not so much. Our ranges don't match.

I also like L'Ete Indien (Dassin is the version I have) and Mon Village Au Bout du Monde.

Of course I do Champs-Elysees, and l'Amerique and like listening to many others of his. (I know, totally declasse, but his vocal resonances and the sheer range of the works he tried were compelling)

The chord and rhythmic changes in Le Grand's corpus still make me smile...Bicyclettes, Cherbourg, Homme/Femme...Watch What Happens, and I sing and play Et Maintenant.

The tiny little theme from the end of Triplettes de Belleville makes a lovely musette piece for improvisation. (And  one from Butch Cassidy/Sundance likewise)

And I keep working on Azanavour's <<La Boheme>> and <<Sur Ma Vie>>...

But I was running short on more recent things...New shopping list for the next visit!

[frenchdoctor]

Michel Berger is definitely an author to know. Splendid, yet simple lyrics and beautiful melodies that perfectly match. But he was an excellent pianist, so it is probably very difficult. The song Kingsbery sings... I doubt many professional singers are able to sing that. It's part of the musical "Starmania" that Berger wrote with the french canadian Luc Plamandon.

[parispundit]

oh, when I am asked what I think of Sarko, I say he reminds me of Napoleon III, and that lets me off the hook, as of course all French academics despise N III - whereas I think that he had considerable merits to go along with his obvious flaws, much like Sarko.

As for Aznavour and his ilk, in this I remain incorrigibly American - give me Gretchen Wilson any day. She goes much better with a proper truck-driver's Cote du Rhone. I mean, French chanson lyrics are great, but the music is, well, let's just say with Anglo-Saxon tolerance not to my taste.

[frenchdoctor]

You're only proving so that America is a country without culture.

[dellaroux]

Dear PP, it's OK, I don't drink champagne, either...

:--}

FD--merci bien, again for all these online sources for tunes. I also have a couple CD shops to check....

It's fun to have new stuff to work on! Some will transcribe easily, others I'll probably just enjoy listening to....encore merci mille fois!

Et...Je te fais presente de....: http://www.dassin.ru/

Go to "chansons" on the clavier a gauche....

(I know, I know!) :=}

[jonesey]

Bonjour,

I just returned from a week in Paris last night (still tired).  What to say?  It was wonderful.  Yes, I did all of the "tourist" things (hey, I only had six days) but I tried to live as local as I could (well, as "local" as you can with meager French skills while staying in the the 7e androssiment...the height of elitist French culture [and tourism]).  No fancy resturaunts, took the Metro and RER (or walked) everywhere, etc.  I wasn't trying to be "real" just travelling on an academic's budget.  : )

At any rate, it was fantastic.  Now I've got a list of a dozen French history books to read (there is a huge amount I didn't know about France's history, much of it fascinating).  One thing that came across was the notion of continual revolution French Doctor has been speaking of, and the idea of a constant struggle towards a better France (in words if not actual deeds). 

Now, if I only had a few million Euros, I'd get that apartment I saw for sale near the Place de Resistance.  : )

[frenchdoctor]

I'm a small town person myself. I go to the 5th arrondissement roughly 3 or 4 times per year, which is an unfortunate necessity if you want to exist in the French academic system -- even though I dislike cities, even though my publisher is located in the "Province" as well. As a professor once wrote, according to the academic mentalities here, not being Parisian is like dancing in a folk company.

The 7th is one of the more expensive and snobbish arrondissements, but everything in Paris is expensive like hell. If I'm not mistaken, in Europe, it's second only to London. With an average academic wage, you'd probably be condemned to a small studio extra-muros (ie. beyond the périphérique, the motorway that surrounds Paris). Not as pleasant as the 7th or the 5th.

It's too bad that you didn't enjoy any strike, marching protest or riot. Paris isn't really Paris without those.

Now you'll have to decide which period of our history you prefer. So much things happened here ! Gauls, Frank kingdoms, Crusades and Middle Age, 100 years war, Religious wars, Absolute monarchy, the Revolution, Napoleon, industrial revolution, trenches of WW1, WWII and Resistance, colonial wars... You could devote an entire life without seeing the end of it.

[jonesey]

Now you'll have to decide which period of our history you prefer. So much things happened here ! Gauls, Frank kingdoms, Crusades and Middle Age, 100 years war, Religious wars, Absolute monarchy, the Revolution, Napoleon, industrial revolution, trenches of WW1, WWII and Resistance, colonial wars... You could devote an entire life without seeing the end of it.

Very true!  I'm interested in how France became a republic, but then returned to monarchy just a few years later.  That fascinates me.

Next time I go, I'm looking at the Nice/Marsailles area.  It seems that there is Paris, and then everything else, due to the size (population) of Paris and the concentration of gov't, education, etc, compared to the rest of the country. 

It was/is very expensive, but very nice, and very, very diverse. 

[frenchdoctor]

Parispundit, who sleeps with a picture of Louis-Napoleon in his bed, can probably talk about that better than me. I'd say that François Furet is the author to read here. Some of his books are available in English :

- François Furet, "Revolutionary France, 1770-1880" (Blackwell). His most important book.

- François Furet, "The French Revolution and the creation of modern political culture," (Pergamon Press). I haven't read this one.

Of course, if you start reading the novellists of this period, there is no end to it : Chateaubriand, Balzac, Stendhal, Hugo... One life isn't enough.

And your remark about Paris-and-the-rest-of-the-world is absolutely true -- even more when academia, arts, and cultural life are involved. Many Americans can't understand it because the USA are a federation. France is the exact opposite, a centralized state.

If you go to the South, the hinterland is probably more interesting than the coast (which is plagued by tourists). It's the country of René Char and Jean Giono : Uzès, Cereste, Venasque, Saumane, Lourmarin (where Albert Camus is buried), le mont Ventoux, le pont du Gard, l'Isle-sur-Sorgue, Fontaine de Vaucluse... Well, that's what people say. I've never been there myself, which is a shame because my dissertation was partly on René Char.

[parispundit]

If I answer this properly, I will blow my cover. PM me and I will provide help - But Furet is a good place to start....

[parispundit]

Parispundit, who sleeps with a picture of Louis-Napoleon in his bed, can probably talk about that better than me.

Nonsense. It is Mme. Recamier I lust after in my heart.

By the way, in the Pyrenees, which I recently visited, they still revere Eugenie, Louis-Napoleon's beautiful but frigid spouse. She briefly made the area fashionable, before tastes shifted and Biarritz beaches won out over mountain crags.