Let's have a music thread. What song is in your head right now?

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

49. Since you bring up Edith Piaf

Last edited Sat Apr 13, 2013, 05:29 AM - Edit history (2)

here's a song I like by another French singer in the "realist" Piaf style who preceded her by a few years: the lady known only as Frehel.

Ou Sont Tous Mes Amants? (Where Have All My Lovers Gone?).


Where have all my lovers gone
All those who used to love me so
When I used to be beautiful
Good-bye to the unfaithful
Where they are I don’t know
Gone to other rendez-vous
But yet my heart hasn’t grown old
Where have all my lovers gone


In the sadness and the returning night
I remain alone, isolated, without comforting
Without constraints, but without love
My heart is heavy as debris
I who had known happiness
Evenings of celebration and admirers
I’m a slave to my memories
And it brings me pain

(refrain)

The night ends and when morning comes
The dew cries along with my sorrows
All those I love
Who loved me
In the paleness of day
Are erased
I see fog pass over my eyes
All the puppets I see, it is they
Still struggling, with a supreme effort
I think I still hear them

(refrain)

And when I spent a year in France in the mid 60s, this singer was very popular. Enrico Macias was a "Pieds Noir", a French-speaking Algerian of European, Jewish origin. Here he sings a happy song about how beautiful the girls from Algeria are. Many of his gorgeous songs however are laments about his homesickness of having been forced to leave his native North Africa when DeGaulle gave Algeria to the Moslem Arabic-speaking people and 1.5 million people of European origin who had called Algeria home for generations were repatriated to Europe.


The girls of my country

Ah how pretty the girls of my country are !
Lai Lai Lai Lai Lai Lai Lai Lai Lai Lai
Yes how pretty the girls of my country are !
Lai Lai Lai Lai Lai Lai Lai Lai Lai Lai

In their eyes , the sun of summer evenings shines
In them , the sea plays with the sky & make them dream
As soon as they are 16 years old , the least trouble ,
The least happiness make their hearts beat .

Ah how pretty the girls of my country are !
Lai Lai Lai Lai Lai Lai Lai Lai Lai Lai
Yes how pretty the girls of my country are !
Lai Lai Lai Lai Lai Lai Lai Lai Lai Lai

When a boy woos them , he already knows
That he won't get anything of their love the first time
He has to get engaged , he has to deserve
The hand he already holds in his hand .

Because they are the girls , the girls of my country
Lai Lai Lai Lai Lai Lai Lai Lai Lai Lai
They are the honnour of the family , the girls of my country
Lai Lai Lai Lai Lai Lai Lai Lai Lai Lai

The one who knows how to be loved will be happy
They have nothing to refuse to their lovers
Yes , but for that , they must face Dad
They must face Mom with a ring around your finger .

Ah how pretty the girls of my country are !
Lai Lai Lai Lai Lai Lai Lai Lai Lai Lai
Yes how pretty the girls of my country are !
Lai Lai Lai Lai Lai Lai Lai Lai Lai Lai

Another monster hit in France in the year I spent there as a young man in 1965 was this one by the pop singer known as Nicolletta, Il est mort le soleil. Ray Charles was visiting France at the time this tune came out and he was so impressed with it that he bought the rights to do a cover in English, The Sun Has Died. Tom Jones also did a cover of it.

The Sun Died

It died
The sun died
When you left me
Summer died
Love and the sun
They are the same

It died
The sun died
But I alone am dressed in mourning
And daylight doesn’t penetrate where I live

Yesterday, we would sleep on the warm sand
Yesterday for me the weather was mild
It was mild even in winter
That was yesterday

It died,
The sun died
A shadow is on my life
Rain in my heart
And my soul is dressed in gray

Yesterday, the color that I loved the most
Was the color of your eyes
It was the color of the sea
That was yesterday

It died
The sun died
When you left me
Summer died
Love and the sun
They are the same
They are the same