Liberal Arts Blog — “La Vie En Rose” (Edith Piaf, Louis Armstrong, Bing Crosby, Grace Jones, Lady Gaga)
Liberal Arts Blog — Thursday is the Joy of Music Day
Today’s Topic: “La Vie en Rose” (Edith Piaf, Louis Armstrong, Bing Crosby, Grace Jones, Lady Gaga)
Last time, Frederic Chopin (1810–1849). The week before Kris Kristofferson (1936–2024). Before that the Jackson Five (1964–1990). Today, a song that first became a hit just after World War Two but has had many second lives. Which version do you like the best? Edith’s? Louis’s? Grace Jones’s? Lady Gaga’s?
The original lyrics were written by Edith Piaf (1915–1963) and the music by Louis Guglielmi (1916–1991), a “Spanish-born French musician of Italian descent,” who was best known by his pen name “Louisguy.”
Piaf is the most iconic of all French singers and “La Vie en Rose” (“Life in Pink”) is her signature song. Her real life was anything but rosy. She was abandoned by her mother at birth and grew up in a brothel. She was only 4 feet 8 inches tall and at age 20 was accused of being an accessory to the murder of her manager and lover Louis Leplee. Later, she was suspected of collaborating with the Germans during the occupation of Paris from 1940–1944.
Her lover, the champion boxer Michel Cerdan, was killed in a plane crash in 1949. She herself was in a car crash two years later which resulted in a broken arm, two broken ribs, and an addiction to morphine on top of her alcoholism.
She died at 47 in 1963 and her grave is in the Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris (also the burial site of Frederic Chopin, Marcel Proust, Oscar Wilde, and Jim Morrison among others).
Experts — please chime in. Correct, elaborate, elucidate.
LA VIE EN ROSE — text — Her birth name was Edith Giovanna Gassion. Her nickname was the “La Mome Piaf” (Parisian slang for “Little Sparrow”)
1. “Les yeux qui font baisser les miens. Un rire qui se perd sur sa bouche. Voila le portrait sans retouche de l’homme auquel j’appartiens.” (Eyes that make me lower mine. A laugh lost on his lips. This is the unvarnished portrait of the man to whom I belong.)
2. “Quand il me prends dans ses bras. Il me parle tout bas. Je vois la vie en rose.” (When he takes me in my arms and speaks to me softly, I see life through rose-colored glasses (literally “life in pink”).
3. “Il me dit des mots d’amour, des mots de tous les jours ca me fair quelque chose.” (He tells me words of love, everyday words, and they do something to me.)
NB: “Il est entre dans mon coeur, une part de bonheur, dont je connais la cause” (He has entered my heart, a bit of happiness, of which I know the cause)
La vie en rose (2023 Remaster)
“C’EST LUI POUR MOI, MOI POUR LUI DANS LA VIE, IL ME L’A DIT, L’A JURE POUR LA VIE “ (It’s him for me, and me for him for life, he said it, he swore for life)
1. “Et des que je l’apercois, je sens en moi, le coeur qui bat” (as soon as I notice him, I feel inside me, my heart beating.)
2. “Des nuits d’amour a plus en finir, un grand bonheur qui prend sa place, Les ennuis, les chagrins s’effacent, heureux, heureux a en mourir” (Endless nights of love, bring great happiness, the pain and bothers fade away, happy, happy I could die.)
3. Lalalala lalalala la la la la
THE TEXT OF LOUIS ARMSTRONG’S VERSION — by Mack David (1912–1993), first performed in 1950. Mack was the older brother of lyricist Hal David, 1921–2012, most famous for his collaboration with composer Burt Bacharach (1928–2023).
1. “Hold me close and hold me fast, the magic spell you cast, this is “La Vie en rose.”
2. “When you kiss me, heaven sighs and though I close my eyes, I see “La Vie en rose.”
3. “When you press me to your heart, I’m in a world apart, A world where roses bloom.”
NB “And when you speak, angels sing from above. Everyday words seem to turn into love songs.”
“Give your heart and soul to me and life will always be “La vie en rose.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zebQD2z2qI
BACKGROUND
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Vie_en_rose
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zebQD2z2qI
Lady Gaga — La Vie En Rose (A Star Is Born)
QUOTE OF THE MONTH
“Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
My spin — then periodically review, re-rank, and exchange your list with those you love. I call this the “Orion Exchange” because seven is about as many as any human can digest at a time. Game?
A LINK TO THE LAST FOUR YEARS OF POSTS ORGANIZED BY THEME:
PDF with headlines — Google Drive
ATTACHMENT BELOW:
#1 A graphic guide to justice (9 metaphors on one page).
#2 “39 Songs, Prayers, and Poems: the Keys to the Hearts of Seven Billion People” — Adams House Senior Common Room Presentation, (11/17/20)
NB: Palestine Orion (Decision) — let’s exchange Orions, let’s find Rumi’s field (“Beyond all ideas of right and wrong, there is a field. Meet me there” Rumi, 13 century Persian Sufi mystic)
YOUR TURN
Time to share the coolest thing you learned in the last week related to music.
Or the coolest thing you learned in your life related to music. Say your favorite song or songs. Or your favorite tips for breathing, posture, or relaxation. Or some insight into the history of music….Or just something random about music… like a joke about drummers. jazz, rock….or share an episode or chapter in your musical autobiography.
This is your chance to make someone else’s day. And perhaps to cement in your memory something important you would otherwise forget. Or to think more deeply than you otherwise would about something that matters to you.
