Léo Ferré- 100 Years, 8. Madeleine Rabereau, her daughter Annie and Pépée the chimp

It suits you
This unceremonious air
With which you took my name
To live from music - Léo Ferré ⁽¹⁾

Léo Ferré (1916 - 1993) separated from Odette Schunck in 1950. The divorce was finalized in December of that year. In the meantime Ferré had met Madeleine Rabereau. Madeleine pulled Ferré out of the doldrums. There was genuine love between the singer and his muse who devoted much time and effort to Ferré's career. Her practical sense no doubt helped keep the artist on the path to success.

The couple first lived, together with Annie, Madeleine's daughter from a previous marriage, at the Boulevard Pershing in Paris. They were married in 1952.  During those years Ferré gradually forged a name for himself as a cult left-bank singer. They spent several summers at the Castle of Costaeres in Trégastel, Brittany, where Léo Ferré, a native of Monaco on the Mediterranean Sea, developed a lifelong admiration for the North Atlantic coast and sea. In 1959 the couple purchased the Fort du Guesclin, a small island off the Breton coast, where Ferré wrote many songs, a.o. La Mémoire et la Mer (Memory and the Sea).

From 1963 - 1968 they lived at the Château de Pechrigal in Southwestern France. The Ferrés adopted many chimpanzees and other animals. One chimpanzee in particular, Pépée, became their beloved, free-roaming pet, who eventually started terrorizing the household. ⁽²⁾

By 1968 love was gone. Ferré was increasingly on the road and, when home, sought solace with Marie-Christine Diaz, a member of the household, who would become his third wife. One day Pépée was injured, and Madeleine who couldn't bear it any longer, had the pet put to sleep together with other animals. Ferré was heartbroken. For him this was the straw that broke the camel's back. The couple divorced in 1973.  Unfortunately, Madeleine Rabereau declined into alcoholism.  She died in 1993, the same year as Ferré.

Let's listen to a few beautiful songs which have Madeleine written all over them.

Notre Amour (Our Love) (1953), set to lyrics by Jacques Douai, a song that melts the heart. The song appeared on the album Paris Canaille.

I am the one you're waiting for,
I am the one who love your so,
Quite a long time,
Oh, such a long time!

Mon p'tit voyou (My little rascal) (1954) appeared on the album Le Piano du pauvre. It is here sung by Jacques Douai. The song is addressed to the little rascal:

When all is gray....
Life springs up, period.
When all is blue....
One takes the good side of life.
When all is green...
Life is dear.
When all will be black...
Small birds will peck At the words of love we said Then, my little rascal, Life, what do we care ...

Si tu t'en vas (If you go) (1960) was the final track on the album Paname.  Here Ferré contemplates the inevitable separation of two lovers while nature and life goes on.

If you go one day
You will forget me
Words of love
Don't travel

The sea will still come
To the shore
Wild flowers
In the heavy grains
Will still come

You will forget me
Wounds of love
Don't open up

The spring will still
Feed the river
New loves will
Still make
Beautiful days

All will finish
The things of love
Don't live

Death will still defeat
The prime of life
It's its task
Despite love
Which always dies

Remember
Words of love
Don't fly away

If you go away
Beyond life
To the light
Where prayers
No longer reach
They are lost

If you go away one day
In those places
We will speak of love
As before

If possible...

Ferré sang Chanson pour elle (Song for her) at the 1961 concert in the Music Hall of the Alhambra. You can hear Ferré sing it here.  Arnaud Chevalier sings the song in the video. Life is still a passionate bed of roses:

If your body were made of fine lace...

If your eyes were old stars
Of those one sees but are already gone...

If your wild hair were the foresail
And I made a boat out of your heart
While sailing up the river Seine

You would be Paris, and I the sailor

...

If the dead suns of the celestial plains
Descended one day on your faded body
Your modest breasts would still glow
A bit from their flame, a bit from my hunger...

"Ça t' va (It suits you)" was the fourth song on the 1962 album La Langue française. Ferré praises Madeleine's moderation and, using words like prison, lock, and lust, declares his contentment with the state of affairs.

You never go to the fashion shows
You prefer to saw a bit of happiness
In our patch and to circulate
Far from the idiots and their system
You're there for ever
Writing me love letters
You release me just to give me
Enough time to write a song and say I love you

It suits me
Your golden prison
Your adored mouth
By way of a lock

It suits me
Your simmering dishes
So much it's like
Eating lust

It suits me
Your happy air
Which lovers have
Who remain faithful

It suits me
That one day one will say
"And as to love
He has only loved her..."

C'est un air (It's a tune) was the tenth track on the album Cette Chanson (This Song) (1967).  The album anticipated what would explode in Gaullist Douce France (Sweet France).⁽³⁾ The song was arranged on the album by Jean-Michel Defaye and can be heard in this version here, unfortunately with very poor audio quality. In the video below Arnaud Chevalier sings the song accompanied by piano.

   One could easily take this simple tune for another charming love song.  But things are going awry between the couple.  Theirs is not a high-brow literary language.  Slang is flying back and forth, and the neighbors are listening in.  Ferré explains that when they talk about love,

    they don't waste time on speeches. When reading serious authors, you need a magnifying glass and a bachelor's degree, but to chat at night the words of the street will do. When it's time to act, we don't waste time on subjunctives. We use slang words like 'salope (bitch)' and 'ta gueule (shut up).' The neighbors can think what they want, but they know one thing, my dear, it's that we're not from the Académie.

   The words 'I love you' and 'And you?' have served well for a long time, they are in people's hearts each time Happiness shows up, and that customer shouldn't be ignored: he may never show up again... When it's not time for dates, when we're ready to split, we use words of despair in the language of the Série Noire. I tell you 'Get lost', you call me 'Stinker.' Stendhal doesn't turn in his grave because our French doesn't prevent him from sleeping...

   It's a tune that runs in the street, that walks the street, that waits in the street, with words dogs know, words of love, words of nothing. And when it comes to writing, we could very well write down our own mumblings, words which usually don't require a degree... When it will be time to go away like birds who did their time, when we will dance our last java in the hall of no return, you will say to me 'Kick the bucket', I will tell you 'Drop dead!' The neighbors will be very pensive. We won't care, one thing is sure--that I was a dog... with style...

With C'Est extra (It's special) (1968/1969), one of Ferré's great successes, Ferré has moved on. This erotic ballad inspired by The Moody Blues and their huge success Nights in White Satin, was written during a visit to his friend Jean Ferrat, singer-songwriter and poet, in Antraigues-sur-Volane.

   Ferré had lived through the sexual revolution of the 1960s and the crystallizing events of May 68.  He became a Beatnik at age 52.  At Antraigues he was very impressed by a young lady in a leather dress like a spindle, who rocked an English song, a Moody Blues, and constantly described things as C'est dégueulasse… C'est fantastique… C'est ­extra… (It's disgusting... It's fantastic... It's special...⁽⁴⁾ We see images of long hair, musical hips, high-perched stockings, and more. It may have been English-inspired, but it is very French indeed.

   Let's listen to this beautiful song and the one that inspired it.  When Ferré heard the English song, he went to his friend Jean-Michel Defaye and asked him to write something similar.  Defaye, more classically trained, knew nothing of The Moody Blues and turned to a neighbor, the yé-yé style singer-songwriter Pierre Saka, who lent him the record.  Defaye figured out how violins work with a pop group... ⁽⁵⁾





À toi (To you) (1969) appeared on the 1969 album L'Été 68 (Summer '68) of which most texts were written in the early 1950s.  The music here is only a foil for the text which describes a couple surrounded by life's ominous things, some of which sound familiar even today. ⁽⁷⁾

   - Migrants who never have bread in advance
   - Violins trumpeting future complaints
   - Tons of spit on Criticature
   - The friendly remorse of the priest at confession ⁽⁶⁾
   - The vain hope of those under fire from machine-guns
   - Lace floating under the nose of misery
   - The wolf deadly wounded one sees becoming silent
   - The song of the rooster and the silence of Saint Peter

   The couple is stopped in its tracks:

AND THEN the capital boredom which sclerotizes us
My poor love because we think the same
Until the Angel transforms us...

And how did Annie, Madeleine's daughter, grow up amidst all of this? She was five when her mother took her to a bar to meet un monsieur très gentil (a very gentle man). ⁽⁸⁾ Léo and Madeleine continued to visit bars often till three in the morning, taking the little girl along.  She slept on the benches.  Léo adopted Annie, and he and Madeleine loved her very much by all accounts.  They did, however, not rein in Pépée, the pet chimpanzee, who grew to be big and strong.  Guests stayed away, and Annie, tired of being crushed and bitten, eventually left to live with her real dad in Paris.

In her book, written twenty years after the death of Léo and Madeleine, Annie set the record straight, a record she felt was skewed in favor of Léo Ferré.  Her mother, she wrote, devoted her life with passion to Ferré. ⁽⁹⁾

Of Ferré she wrote that in 1968, aided by mid-life crisis and the spirit of the time, he created, and proclaimed it loud and clear, his "own revolution." For this he dumped his wife, burned what he had adored and lied a lot to himself and to others, in order to forget the reality of a happy past.⁽¹⁰⁾

And how did Ferré react to the presence of this little girl whom he watched growing up into a beautiful young woman? There are hints in a couple of songs.

Jolie Môme (Pretty Kid) (1960) was written when Annie was fourteen. This successful song reveals Ferré's playful side, but also an older man observing a beautiful young kid. Petite (Little Girl) (1969), coming many years later, goes a step further.  He admits having des yeux de marlou (the eyes of a pimp).  In an interview he explained:  I don't believe there is one man who hasn't one day looked at a girl becoming a woman with the eyes of a man.





Ferré wrote Pépée (1969) in honor of his beloved chimpanzee pet after Madeleine got rid of him and the couple split up. ⁽¹¹⁾ The song does show how much Ferré missed this animal who had ears like Gainsbourg and a heart like a drum.


__________________________________________________________
⁽¹⁾ Léo Ferré, "Ça t' va." Fourth song on the album La Langue française, 1962. (http://www.paroles-musique.com/paroles-Leo_Ferre-Ca_Tva-lyrics,p11134 (09/17/2016)).
⁽²⁾ In 2013 Annie Butor, Madeleine's daughter became a lawyer and in 2013 published a book Comment voulez-vous que j’oublie… (How do you want me to forget...) which sheds a lot of light on the Ferré - Rabereau marriage and their household. Annie defends her mother but doesn't obliterate Ferré in the process. Pépée the chimp, on the other hand, doesn't fare so well.
⁽³⁾ This is a reference to the May 1968 events in France. Pascal Boniface, "Léo Ferré, bientôt la fin du purgatoire? (Léo Ferré, soon the end of purgatory?)."L'Humanité, 06/16/2016. (http://www.humanite.fr/leo-ferre-bientot-la-fin-du-purgatoire-609757 (09/23/2016))
⁽⁴⁾ Véziane de Vezins, "«C'est extra» de Léo Ferré." Le Figaro, 08/21/2011. (http://www.lefigaro.fr/musique/2011/08/21/03006-20110821ARTFIG00160-c-est-extra-de-leo-ferre.php (09/24/2016))
⁽⁵⁾ Daniel Ichbiah, "50 ans de chansons françaises (50 Years of French songs)." eBook, 09/11/2012, p. 1951.  (https://books.google.fr/books?id=DyNFJKAJe1MC&pg=RA2-PA1952&dq=L%C3%A9o+Ferr%C3%A9+%2B+night+in+white+satins&hl=fr&sa=X&ei=6Dh2VOepCIPzPIr7gYgH&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=L%C3%A9o%20Ferr%C3%A9%20%2B%20night%20in%20white%20satins&f=false (09/24/2016))
⁽⁶⁾ In his autobiographical novel Benoît Misère (1970) Ferré related that he was a victim of pedophile acts by the superintendent at the Christian Brothers boarding school in Bordighera.
⁽⁷⁾ If this text was written in the 1950s, it doesn't seem to reflect much on the relationship between Ferré and Madeleine, which was still young and loving. However, these were the years of the nuclear arms race, and the general mood was somber in France due to the Indochina war.  The nuclear spectre is raised in the song with the line Well-meaning folks who have desintegrated the atom.
⁽⁸⁾ Annie Butor, "Comment voulez-vous que j’oublie… (How do you want me to forget...).  Phébus, 04/05/2016, p. 17  (http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17978297-comment-voulez-vous-que-j-oublie (09/24/2016))
⁽⁹⁾Ib., p. 15.
⁽¹⁰⁾Ib., p. 14.
⁽¹¹⁾ That Madeleine couldn't take it anymore is understandable. The animal, adored without reserve by Ferré, had chased Madeleine's daughter out of the house and was out of control. When the animal was injured, the situation became impossible.