CHARLES AZNAVOUR – "She"

Sad to see that some people are still throwing rotten tomatoes at Charles Aznavour six decades on from when he was starting out as a Piaf protege and spent most of the late forties and all of the fifties being routinely ridiculed and jeered by French critics and audiences. Like Gainsbourg he was nobody’s conventional idea of “handsome” and yet his patience paid off as the critical tide eventually turned in the early sixties and people finally realised what an explosive performer he was. Like Gainsbourg he developed an undeniable aura despite his physical status.

And like Gainsbourg he seized the nettle of hitherto taboo lyrical subject matter; the death of libido in “You’ve Let Yourself Go,” the death of hope in “Venice,” and in “What Makes A Man?” a song with an openly gay protagonist at a time when doing so was considered worthy of death by stoning – the rather sentimental portrait of the misunderstood loner has long since been superseded of course, and rightly so, but in its age it was incendiary.

Possibly my favourite song of his is the six-minute-plus “No, I Could Never Forget” which displays why Truffaut and Godard wanted him as an actor; he bumps into an old flame from which he was forced to part years before, they go to a restaurant, he is secretly trembling with expectations that she too is alone and abandoned, and the weight that he bears on the crucial “yes” of her response is enough to bring down a planet, he wants her so much it’s tearing him to shreds (and he more or less sings the final two verses in tears), but the timing, the shades and nuances which he brings to this performance, are sublime.

Of course I am referring to the songs Aznavour sung in English – like Celine Dion, one really needs to hear him and them in the original French to “get” his art. His English lyrics were generally written by Herbert Kretzmer (whose paths unexpectedly crossed with mine back in the summer of 1990) and were not literal translations but written with Aznavour’s full input and consent; Aznavour’s strategy for stardom was to become popular one country at a time – i.e. learn the language, then set up a tour and sing in the audience’s language – and it proved an astute move.

So “She” – I remember the TV series being on, Sundays at nine on ITV, but don’t remember too much about it – could serve as a more sophisticated “can’t live with/without ’em” variant. It doesn’t really matter to whom he’s addressing the song, but his delivery is I believe truthful and the emotion he pours into “’til the day I die,” “the why and wherefore I’m alive” and the whimpered “me?” is transcendent.

The song has a deeper personal resonance for me, I must admit (not for discussion here), but even if it didn’t I would still recognise this as an imperious yet vulnerable piece of work. I’m giving it a 9.

It is what it is, and it is a very good example of what it is. It’s not exactly Brel- or Piaf-esque chanson, it’s something to appeal ton an Anglo-Saxon (and therefore sentimental) idea of what a French song ought to sound like. Which isn’t the same as a French song.

Though I am familiar with the song it has no particular associations for me, because it belongs to that black hole of a summer in Canada and I’m pretty sure I never heard it there. Nor did it figure much on the Sphinx Bar jukebox when I came home. I think it just seeped into my consciousness over a period, without me noticing very much.

Its attitude to womanhood seems a bit laughable now, but it’s a hell of a lot better than the bitter misogyny of any number of dancehall and gangster rap artistes. After forty years of (second wave) feminism, why haven’t men got it yet?

More than a 3 for me. Not quite a 7 either but it’s perfectly agreeable when it comes up in the mix.

Now that Drifters song gave me the creeps in a Gary Glitter sense; fifty-year-old men singing about picking girls up from school?

Gilbert Becaud actually went top ten with “A Little Love And Understanding,” yet another thread in Wogan’s tapestry of strange songs sung in funny accents.

Yep – as mentioned above, EC covered it for the film Notting Hill.

Aha x-post! That’ll teach me not to read through the comments…

(Damn those cross-posts!)

The early 90s Terry Hall (with Dave Stewart as Vegas) cover was my intro to this one – probably from a Chart Show episode. I recall it as a faithful port of the original with no twists but am unaware of their reasons for choosing to record it.

Without saying too much , I have a warm place in my heart for this song as done by Elvis Costello. It reminds me of someone I met in Malta when I was there for a month that I wished had never ended.
She, amoungst the streets , cafes, and golden fortifications of Valetta, is ” She”.

And I really liked ” Notting Hill ” , fine piece of ensemble comedy. And all the Brits should know that this how the world perceives you, until, of course, you land at Heathrow.

They cut out the scene where Hugh goes to the Rough Trade shop to buy Julia the new Boyzone single.

LOL…

While we are in French mode…I just came back from a week in northeren Quebec ( Ville Saguenay ) and a friend of mine bought me 2 CD’s that are really A-1. So the plug is for The Cowboys Fringants (www.cowboysfringants.com) & Mes Aieux (www.mesaieux.qc.ca)

I don’t speak French but it won’t impede anyone’s enjoyment of these bands.

Just listened to it. Glorious, sublime, a 9.

“The Old Fashioned Way” is another one of those songs whose point you only really grasp when you get to, erm, my age. Now his remark “The world changes – love stays” makes perfect sense.

Beautiful melody, lovely arrangement, and that voice giving it the hook to make it stand out from the pack – yet another number 1 like Waterloo and even perhaps Seasons in the Sun(with its unusually perky musical arrangement) that seems to combine optimism w/ a meloncholy sigh of regret. Must have been something in the water at the time.
3 is way out- would have probably hated it at the time but this is a def 8 now.

An overripe slice of French cheese, is my feeling. Aznavour did much better things than this, but nonetheless he remains a second-rank chansonnier, compared with the likes of Brel, Brassens, Ferré, etc. A good actor, though. He’s excellent in Chabrol’s Fantômes du chapelier.

I seem to remember reading that this single was a huge flop in France!

and pretentious

One day at school in the summer of 1974, a few weeks before I was to take summer exams as a second year, I wrote a composition for English class called “Boxing Day Bobby”. This told the seasonal tale of an enterprising lad (Bobby) who struck on a blinding money spinning idea. He simply went around all the houses in his well-healed neighbourhood on the day after Christmas, collecting up all the now neglected presents of puppies, kitties and bunnies into a perforated potato sack to take down to a bridge over a stream and there indulge in his own variation of “Pooh sticks”. For this vital service, Bobby naturally takes a commission. On the back of this delightful festive story I was cordially invited to undergo a programme of half hour treatments with Doctor Ramesh Ganges, who was on site to help my school’s many “special” children. During these sessions (there were about six of them, I think) I can remember moving flat animal shapes around a board depicting a farm, drawing the “Play School” house over and over and also playing Ludo with Doctor Ganges, which is rather like Trivial Pursuit without the questions. I remember Doctor Ganges as being a dear man, who reminded me of Professor Calculus from the “Tintin” stories, but his parting remark to me was double-edged:

“Waldo, you are a clever and creative boy but your imagination tells me that there is something disturbing in you…” Charming.

When I returned to my class, I had it on good authority that I would broadly be left to my own devices and not subjected to any cruelty. Amazingly this held sway. I think the advent of the exam season had much to do with it and I was, after all, in the “O-level stream”, largely a civilised group within a school choc-full of psychotics, neurotics, bullies, nincompoops, half-wits and violent basket cases (and that was just the girls).

Everything was going swimmingly until “She” by Charles Aznavour charted and very quickly occupied the top spot. Universally this record was loathed by my contemporaries, boy and girl, but I personally thought it was a beautiful song and said so, even though it was the theme to a Frank Finlay-esque TV series no bugger ever watched. I particularly liked the line about “beauty/beast, famine/feast”. I said this openly too. It was only after this happened that I walked into class after lunch one day and saw that somebody had scrawled “WALDO IS CRACKERS!” on the blackboard. I had my own idea as to the culprit but it wasn’t important. What was important was that someone had obviously considered my fondness for a pop ballad as a clearer sign of lunacy than my drowning-the-pets story, which even I later conceded was a worrying piece of prose, the consequent psychoanalysis of the thirteen year-old author being perfectly understandable. Thank God I’m cured now.

Happy Days!

Although these days, “Boxing Day Bobby” would not only be published but earn you a slot on Channel 4.

“Boxing Day Bobby” occupied all of three and a half pages of a red A5 exercise book. At the bottom was the comment from my teacher: “See Me”. The spooky thing was I can’t recall my parents having anything to do with my consequent sessions with Doctor Gangees, although I consider it unthinkable that they would not have been consulted to see whether there were any objections to my treatment. As for the story itself, Charlie Brooker and/or Channel 4 are quite welcome to it.

I must confess that “See me” appeared more than just the once as a mark for my English compositions or “stories” as the thick kids called them. Far more satisfying was a comment regarding a piece I wrote about a swimming pool, comparing this to the Berlin Wall. I was very pleased with it and the teacher’s remark was “Good if original”. The implication was obvious and when I showed this to my dear old mum, she was livid and ready to steam round to the school to confront the teacher. I assured her that the comment was the most flattering thing he could have written and that his opinion didn’t matter. If he felt that the work was beyond my wit (I was only a scumbag comprehensive school kid after all), it was completely up to him. My mum could never see this but a face-off with the school was fortunately avoided.

From my French teacher, on an end-of-term report: “He is making good progress, but he must learn to confine himself to what is considered to be acceptable French.”

Google says it was one Christian Toma.

I discovered this through the EC cover and I think it’s a pretty perfect song. Nice to see it’s polarizing people… great songs probably should.

RIP to Charles Aznavour. 94 which isn’t a bad old age, and he seems to have been fit and cheerful up to the sudden end. Worse ways to go.