Saturday, October 27, 2012

Autumn Leaves - Les Feuilles Mortes...



The autumn leaves are littering the ground here, their beautiful colours offset by the berries in the hedges. The wind has picked up tonight, so much of this rich harvest of leaves will have been buffeted and blown away by the time I set out tomorrow morning.








This season always brings to mind a number of different autumnal songs, generally wistful music about the passing of life, loves and time in general. As much as I like summer, the passage to autumn doesn't bother me so I don't really share the regret-tinged tones of these songs. The following certainly isn't an elegy to any particular feuille morte from the windier moments of my life... 

 










Nevertheless I do like the songs... This probably started with a song by Justin Hayward in the 70's, called Forever Autumn, but this isn't the most famous music with autumn as its theme. For that, you have a more Gallic source...


After Claude François' Comme d'Habitude  of 1967 (taken up by Frank Sinatra to become, more famously, My Way in 1969) one of the most famous French songs to gain international recognition, recorded by numerous artists in many different genres is Les Feuilles Mortes


Les Feuilles Mortes was sung by the Italian-born actor and singer Yves Montand. Himself married to the iconic French actress Simone Signoret, Montand was briefly romantically linked to Marilyn Monroe in the early 60's when filming in Hollywood. Monroe was still married to Arthur Miller at that time, and I don't know how much Montand/Monroe regretted this liaison, or its ending or indeed if Montand thought of this whilst singing the song itself. He sings of his sentimental memories of a lost love, a time when living was more beautiful and Life had not yet separated the two lovers. The souvenirs and regrets of that radiant period are scattered like fallen leaves, treasured yet lost to the dull winds of time, washed away like footsteps in the sand.


                                       Oh je voudrais tant que tu te souviennes
                                       Des jours heureux où nous étions amis
                                       En ce temps là, la vie était plus belle
                                       Et le soleil plus brûlant qu'aujourd'hui
                                       Les feuilles mortes se ramassent à la pelle

                                       Tu vois je n'ai pas oublié
                                       Les feuilles mortes se ramassent à la pelle
                                       Les souvenirs et les regrets aussi
                                       Et le vent du nord les emporte
                                       Dans la nuit froide de l'oubli
                                       Tu vois, je n'ai pas oublié
                                       La chanson que tu me chantais

                                      C'est une chanson, qui nous ressemble
                                      Toi tu m'aimais, et je t'aimais
                                      Et nous vivions tout les deux ensemble
                                      Toi qui m'aimais, moi qui t'aimais
                                      Mais la vie sépare ceux qui s'aiment
                                      Tout doucement sans faire de bruit
                                      Et la mer efface sur le sable
                                      Le pas des amants désunis

                                     C'est une chanson, qui nous ressemble
                                     Toi tu m'aimais et je t'aimais
                                     Et nous vivions, tous deux ensemble
                                     Toi qui m'aimait, moi qui t'aimais
                                     Mais la vie sépare ceux qui s'aime
                                     Tout doucement sans faire de bruit
                                     Et la mer efface sur le sable
                                     Le pas des amants désunis.


The song finds its origins in music by the Hungarian composer, Josef Kosma, for a ballet in 1945. The poem by Jacques Prévert was later arranged around the music score  in 1946, and was the final version was sung in the film Les Portes de la Nuit. This gloomy drama, set in post-war Paris and directed by Marcel Carné (1909-1996), was not a great success, but its poetic urban realism later influenced the American film noir genre.


The song shook off the bleaker tone of its origin title, Les Feuilles Mortes (dead leaves), and became a little mellower when renamed Autumn Leaves. The various jazz interpretations of Autumn Leaves  later gave the song an upbeat tone with singers such as Miles Davis and Nat King Cole.

 However, there have been other stylistic approaches to Autumn Leaves, with singers varying from Tom Jones, Frank Sinatra, Eva Cassidy and Iggy Pop, just to cite a few...
Les Feuilles Mortes found another tone and mood again, when it was referred to in the song La Chanson de Prévert by another iconic French singer, Serge Gainsbourg. Written in 1961, the song dates back to a period when Gainsbourg was still producing highly-successful work for other artists, but had yet to interpret his own songs on stage. Here the lyrics of the original poem Les Feuilles Mortes are drawn on, but in a more melancholic manner still!

These leaves will be evergreen...
"Past loves never stop dying... Let autumn pass, winter come and the song of Prévert, that song, Les Feuilles Mortes, fade from my memory and then that day my past loves will have finished dying away..."


                                    Oh je voudrais tant que tu te souviennes
                                    Cette chanson était la tienne
                                    C'était ta préférée
                                    Je crois
                                    Qu'elle est de Prévert et Kosma
                                  

                                    Et chaque fois les feuilles mortes
                                   Te rappellent à mon souvenir
                                   Jour après jour
                                   Les amours mortes
                                   N'en finissent pas de mourir
                                 

                                   Avec d'autres bien sûr je m'abandonne
                                  Mais leur chanson est monotone
                                  Et peu à peu je m' indiffère
                                  A cela il n'est rien
                                  A faire
                                 

                                 Car chaque fois les feuilles mortes
                                 Te rappellent à mon souvenir
                                 Jour après jour
                                 Les amours mortes
                                 N'en finissent pas de mourir
                                 

                                 Peut-on jamais savoir par où commence
                                 Et quand finit l'indifférence
                                 Passe l'automne vienne
                                 L'hiver
                                 Et que la chanson de Prévert
                                 

                                 Cette chanson
                                 Les Feuilles Mortes
                                 S'efface de mon souvenir
                                 Et ce jour là
                                 Mes amours mortes
                                 En auront fini de mourir



Well, after that, here's Eric Clapton's version of Autumn Leaves to end on a more glowing autumnal note...  

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