In the early 1960s Marie-Christine Diaz (Maria Cristina, or simply Marie in some of the songs) entered the household of Léo (1916 - 1993) and Madeleine Ferré at the Pechrigal Castle in the French Lot Department. A daughter of Spanish exiles who made there living as farmers, she was hired to take care of the animals. She was an unassuming, rather timid girl age sixteen.
As the marriage of Léo and Madeleine disintegrated, Léo sought Marie-Christine's company. From confidants they became lovers. (1) By May 1970 when their son Mathieu was born, the couple was living in Florence. They married in 1974 and eventually moved to the beautiful countryside of Castellina in Chianti. Two daughters followed, Marie-Cécile and Manuella.
Theirs was a fulfilling family life full of happiness. After Léo's death in 1993 Marie-Christine continued to take care of the Tuscan estate and its wine and olive production. Twenty years later in 2013 the Rock of Monaco held a sober and touching tribute to their native son in the presence of Prince Albert of Monaco, his sister Princess Caroline, and Marie-Christine who was visibly moved. (2)
Léo Ferré wrote a number of love songs for Marie-Christine, testimonies to the unconditional love that existed between them and to the happiness she gave him in his older years.
La Lettre (The Letter) (1970) appeared on the double album Amour Anarchie. Léo declares his great love and mentions his newborn son:
Ton style (Your style) and Dans les night (1971) were both recorded for the album La Solitude. In 1969 Ferré became inspired by anglo-saxon rock which gave new impetus to French popular music and to Ferré. In my previous post we already listened to C'est extra which was inspired by the Moody Blues. Later that year he worked with jazz-rock musicians in New York.
In 1970 he started to work with the French rock group Zoo. Zoo accompanies Ferré on the La Solitude album on seven of the nine tracks. (3) They do so in Dans les night featured below. These songs with their strong appeal to France's disaffected youth (4) are more representative of Ferré's beatnik period than of his incipient relationship with Marie-Christine.
In Dans les night Ferré talks about nightclubs in an exciting jazz-rock style. One senses that the old lion Léo appreciates nightclubs without admitting it, the hide-out of young fools, fans of pop music. The lyrics are full of wild, dangerous images, and love/sex is everywhere. 'Death appears on a Kawasaki'; 'I love you [so much I would] cut my throat and sing with a bloody guitar'; 'Love walks away holding the arm of a murderer'; 'There are passing girls leaving like angels, in cotton hells where Marie-Jeanne turns tricks'(8) are just a few examples.
Les amants tristes (Sad Lovers), written in 1972 and included on the album L'Espoir (Hope) (1974), is a rambling very poetic text evoking the 'cold eyes' of a lover who Ferré identifies with a 'newspaper which he folds, reads, wrinkles until she cries out, until the maelstrom of desire sweeps away and confuses bodies and destruction of the soul.'(9) We see indecent women in Paris, Moscow and Beijing, and nature is present with images of the sea (10) and a descending sun. One is not sure whether Ferré addresses women in general or one in particular. Again, this text does not seem to evoke Marie-Christine. Could it be that the spectre of Madeleine has not yet completely disappeared?
In 1974 Ferré broke with the label Barclay. Now living in Tuscany, he took charge of his artistic destiny. He would until his death in 1993 create single-handed a large body of work, entirely free from the traditional chanson format, trying out streaming and baroque texts and symphonic orchestrations of an overflowing lyricism. Leaving his abode only for extended tours all over the world Ferré remained true to his political ideals to the very end. (12)
Married with chil,dren, the bond between Léo and Marie-Christine grew strong, and Ferré wrote some songs about this happy new normal.
Love was composed in 1975 but because of a termination contract with the label Barclay Ferré could not record it himself until 1976. A purely instrumental version was allowed and recorded in 1975 on the album Ferré muet... dirige (Ferré silent... conducts). Pia Colombo sang it on a separate disc which accompanied the instrumental one. In 1977 the song was included in Italian on the album La musica mi prende come l'amore (Music seizes me like love).
Je te donne (I give you) (1976) was the first track on the eponymous album. There is no doubt that this song is for Marie-Christine: he mentions her by name, "Marie," at the very end and in the second verse evokes The perfumes of the night when they rise from Spain. And again, nature is not far away: there are Sea sprays in your eyes and the sea in your belly, and The laughter of the sun when the sun is carefree. The song enumerates many things he will give to his beloved, last but not least Those broken wings each time one flies away...
Je t'aime (I love you) (1982) appeared on the late triple album Ludwig - L'Imaginaire - Le Bateau ivre (1982) as part of the Ludwig selections. The tenderness of the lyrics, imagining what love will be like when the couple grows older, is underscored by the lyricism of the symphonic strings. When the first stanzas are repeated; the strings are joined by soft pulsating percussion. Life and love is like the ebb and flow of the sea.
The first image we see is that of the North Sea and its fishermen cavalry, reminding of Comme à Ostende (As in Ostend), the beautiful song Ferré wrote two decades earlier.
_________________________________________________________________
(1) Ludovic Perrin, "Léo a été le seul homme dans ma vie (Léo was the only man in my life)." Interview, Le Monde, 07/13/2013. (http://www.lemonde.fr/culture/article/2013/07/13/leo-a-ete-le-seul-homme-dans-ma-vie_3447086_3246.html (09/27/2016))
En savoir plus sur http://www.lemonde.fr/culture/article/2013/07/13/leo-a-ete-le-seul-homme-dans-ma-vie_3447086_3246.html#G3VpjcTFlt0AUSb5.99
(2) G.J., "Léo Ferré : Sa veuve émue aux larmes, entourée d'Albert et Caroline à Monaco (Léo Ferré: His widow moved to tears, surrounded by Albert and Caroline of Monaco)." Purepeople website, 06/12/2013. (http://www.purepeople.com/article/leo-ferre-sa-veuve-emue-aux-larmes-entouree-d-albert-et-caroline-a-monaco_a122642/1 (09/27/2016))
(3)"La Solitude (album)." French Wikipedia page. (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Solitude_(album) (09/29/2016))
(4) Alex Hughes, Keith A Reader, "Encyclopedia of Contemporary French Culture." New York, Routledge, Léo Ferré entry, 1998, p. 212. (https://books.google.com/books?id=BKCFAgAAQBAJ&lpg=PA212&ots=Ehhxh3eV0X&dq=Ferr%C3%A9%20beatnik&pg=PA212#v=onepage&q=Ferr%C3%A9%20beatnik&f=false (09/30/2016))
(5) Oscar Bisounours, "Léo Ferré - Ton style." YouTube video comments, 12/21/2008. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBPHesOGEBA (09/27/2016))
(6) Franck Delgado, Ib.
(7) Adeline Cordier, "The mediating of chanson: French identity and the myth Brel-Brassens-Ferré." Doctoral thesis in French Studies, University of Sterling, School of Languages, Cultures and Religion, September 2008, p. 124. We are still far away from today's standards. (https://dspace.stir.ac.uk/bitstream/1893/955/1/CordierPhDthesis.pdf (09/27/2016))
(8) In the mid-1970s Ferré would write Marie-Jeanne, a monologue of 72 pages about Marie-Jeanne, Ferré's metaphoric figure, a mysterious young woman who floats as a hologram in the ripples of our brain. (http://www.leo-ferre-by-scl.com/html-l/livremariejeanne.html (09/29/2016))
(9) Edmée Santy, "Les articles d’Edmée Santy (The articles of Edmée Santy)" Jacques Layani, Léo Ferré Etudes & Propos, 7/10/2007. (http://leoferre.hautetfort.com/archive/2007/07/10/les-articles-d-edmee-santy.html#more (09/30/2016))
(10) Ferré time and again used images and metaphors linked to the sea, its ebb and flow, ocean smells. Did Ferré derive this imagery all on his own, or was he aware of the work of Sándor Ferenczi, the Hungarian psychoanalyst, who described a similar theory in his work Thalassa.
(11) Edmée Santy, Ib.
(12) Stéphane Ollivier, "Léo Ferré." Historical context to video of Ferré singing Les Anarchistes at the Bobino concert, 01/01/1969, website of Institut National de l'Audiovisuel (INA). (http://fresques.ina.fr/jalons/fiche-media/InaEdu04750/leo-ferre.html (09/30/2016))
As the marriage of Léo and Madeleine disintegrated, Léo sought Marie-Christine's company. From confidants they became lovers. (1) By May 1970 when their son Mathieu was born, the couple was living in Florence. They married in 1974 and eventually moved to the beautiful countryside of Castellina in Chianti. Two daughters followed, Marie-Cécile and Manuella.
Theirs was a fulfilling family life full of happiness. After Léo's death in 1993 Marie-Christine continued to take care of the Tuscan estate and its wine and olive production. Twenty years later in 2013 the Rock of Monaco held a sober and touching tribute to their native son in the presence of Prince Albert of Monaco, his sister Princess Caroline, and Marie-Christine who was visibly moved. (2)
Léo Ferré wrote a number of love songs for Marie-Christine, testimonies to the unconditional love that existed between them and to the happiness she gave him in his older years.
La Lettre (The Letter) (1970) appeared on the double album Amour Anarchie. Léo declares his great love and mentions his newborn son:
I bring you tonight my child of long, the child I've made, all alone, who looks like me, who looks like you, who comes from your womb, your womb which is in my head.
You are the sister, the daughter, the companion and the lover of the burning God who lights up our nights since we've been making our nights.
I love you.
Ton style (Your style) and Dans les night (1971) were both recorded for the album La Solitude. In 1969 Ferré became inspired by anglo-saxon rock which gave new impetus to French popular music and to Ferré. In my previous post we already listened to C'est extra which was inspired by the Moody Blues. Later that year he worked with jazz-rock musicians in New York.
In 1970 he started to work with the French rock group Zoo. Zoo accompanies Ferré on the La Solitude album on seven of the nine tracks. (3) They do so in Dans les night featured below. These songs with their strong appeal to France's disaffected youth (4) are more representative of Ferré's beatnik period than of his incipient relationship with Marie-Christine.
Ton style was first composed for instruments only for a film, but the score was rejected. Ferré then wrote some lyrics for this music.(5)
Ton style is a tribute to the independent woman who is awakening, is no longer an instrument of procreation, she doesn't hesitate to show this liberty... scarcer fabric... preserving a few stitches to leave something for the imagination. The liberated woman offers nothing wrong... to him who can satisfy her... without being a woman-object... because that will be her choice. Love, the real thing, not bound to conventions is then maybe right around the corner.(6)Ton style is often criticized for being misogynistic particularly for the line Ton style c’est ton cul c’est ton cul / Ton style c’est ma loi quand tu t’y plies salope! (Your style is your ass is your ass. Your style is my law when you obey it bitch!). In interviews Ferré explained that this was his way of saying that he loved women too much. He turned ‘misogynist’ into a positive word, because being accused of ‘misogyny’ meant that he was considered to be– and was happy to be considered to be – in conflict with social standards.(7)
In Dans les night Ferré talks about nightclubs in an exciting jazz-rock style. One senses that the old lion Léo appreciates nightclubs without admitting it, the hide-out of young fools, fans of pop music. The lyrics are full of wild, dangerous images, and love/sex is everywhere. 'Death appears on a Kawasaki'; 'I love you [so much I would] cut my throat and sing with a bloody guitar'; 'Love walks away holding the arm of a murderer'; 'There are passing girls leaving like angels, in cotton hells where Marie-Jeanne turns tricks'(8) are just a few examples.
Les amants tristes (Sad Lovers), written in 1972 and included on the album L'Espoir (Hope) (1974), is a rambling very poetic text evoking the 'cold eyes' of a lover who Ferré identifies with a 'newspaper which he folds, reads, wrinkles until she cries out, until the maelstrom of desire sweeps away and confuses bodies and destruction of the soul.'(9) We see indecent women in Paris, Moscow and Beijing, and nature is present with images of the sea (10) and a descending sun. One is not sure whether Ferré addresses women in general or one in particular. Again, this text does not seem to evoke Marie-Christine. Could it be that the spectre of Madeleine has not yet completely disappeared?
A monumental, heart-rending ode, "Sad Lovers", a mausoleum with the taste of sulfur but a dome of azure. If Lautréamont had been in love, if Rimbaud had lived, if Genet knew how to sound good, they would have used the same words, would have invented an identical 'miracle of the vowels.'(11)
In 1974 Ferré broke with the label Barclay. Now living in Tuscany, he took charge of his artistic destiny. He would until his death in 1993 create single-handed a large body of work, entirely free from the traditional chanson format, trying out streaming and baroque texts and symphonic orchestrations of an overflowing lyricism. Leaving his abode only for extended tours all over the world Ferré remained true to his political ideals to the very end. (12)
Married with chil,dren, the bond between Léo and Marie-Christine grew strong, and Ferré wrote some songs about this happy new normal.
Love was composed in 1975 but because of a termination contract with the label Barclay Ferré could not record it himself until 1976. A purely instrumental version was allowed and recorded in 1975 on the album Ferré muet... dirige (Ferré silent... conducts). Pia Colombo sang it on a separate disc which accompanied the instrumental one. In 1977 the song was included in Italian on the album La musica mi prende come l'amore (Music seizes me like love).
Je te donne (I give you) (1976) was the first track on the eponymous album. There is no doubt that this song is for Marie-Christine: he mentions her by name, "Marie," at the very end and in the second verse evokes The perfumes of the night when they rise from Spain. And again, nature is not far away: there are Sea sprays in your eyes and the sea in your belly, and The laughter of the sun when the sun is carefree. The song enumerates many things he will give to his beloved, last but not least Those broken wings each time one flies away...
Je t'aime (I love you) (1982) appeared on the late triple album Ludwig - L'Imaginaire - Le Bateau ivre (1982) as part of the Ludwig selections. The tenderness of the lyrics, imagining what love will be like when the couple grows older, is underscored by the lyricism of the symphonic strings. When the first stanzas are repeated; the strings are joined by soft pulsating percussion. Life and love is like the ebb and flow of the sea.
The first image we see is that of the North Sea and its fishermen cavalry, reminding of Comme à Ostende (As in Ostend), the beautiful song Ferré wrote two decades earlier.
When there is the sea and then the horses
Going around as in the movies
But in your arms it's still more beautiful
When there is the sea and then the horses
...
I love you for your face open to the night
When your vigor, arising as from the depths of the ages,
Burns in your stomach and I curse you
For being all at once my sister my angel and my Light
...
When the machine has started
When one no longer knows very well where one is
And one waits for what will happen
I love you
_________________________________________________________________
(1) Ludovic Perrin, "Léo a été le seul homme dans ma vie (Léo was the only man in my life)." Interview, Le Monde, 07/13/2013. (http://www.lemonde.fr/culture/article/2013/07/13/leo-a-ete-le-seul-homme-dans-ma-vie_3447086_3246.html (09/27/2016))
En savoir plus sur http://www.lemonde.fr/culture/article/2013/07/13/leo-a-ete-le-seul-homme-dans-ma-vie_3447086_3246.html#G3VpjcTFlt0AUSb5.99
(2) G.J., "Léo Ferré : Sa veuve émue aux larmes, entourée d'Albert et Caroline à Monaco (Léo Ferré: His widow moved to tears, surrounded by Albert and Caroline of Monaco)." Purepeople website, 06/12/2013. (http://www.purepeople.com/article/leo-ferre-sa-veuve-emue-aux-larmes-entouree-d-albert-et-caroline-a-monaco_a122642/1 (09/27/2016))
(3)"La Solitude (album)." French Wikipedia page. (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Solitude_(album) (09/29/2016))
(4) Alex Hughes, Keith A Reader, "Encyclopedia of Contemporary French Culture." New York, Routledge, Léo Ferré entry, 1998, p. 212. (https://books.google.com/books?id=BKCFAgAAQBAJ&lpg=PA212&ots=Ehhxh3eV0X&dq=Ferr%C3%A9%20beatnik&pg=PA212#v=onepage&q=Ferr%C3%A9%20beatnik&f=false (09/30/2016))
(5) Oscar Bisounours, "Léo Ferré - Ton style." YouTube video comments, 12/21/2008. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBPHesOGEBA (09/27/2016))
(6) Franck Delgado, Ib.
(7) Adeline Cordier, "The mediating of chanson: French identity and the myth Brel-Brassens-Ferré." Doctoral thesis in French Studies, University of Sterling, School of Languages, Cultures and Religion, September 2008, p. 124. We are still far away from today's standards. (https://dspace.stir.ac.uk/bitstream/1893/955/1/CordierPhDthesis.pdf (09/27/2016))
(8) In the mid-1970s Ferré would write Marie-Jeanne, a monologue of 72 pages about Marie-Jeanne, Ferré's metaphoric figure, a mysterious young woman who floats as a hologram in the ripples of our brain. (http://www.leo-ferre-by-scl.com/html-l/livremariejeanne.html (09/29/2016))
(9) Edmée Santy, "Les articles d’Edmée Santy (The articles of Edmée Santy)" Jacques Layani, Léo Ferré Etudes & Propos, 7/10/2007. (http://leoferre.hautetfort.com/archive/2007/07/10/les-articles-d-edmee-santy.html#more (09/30/2016))
(10) Ferré time and again used images and metaphors linked to the sea, its ebb and flow, ocean smells. Did Ferré derive this imagery all on his own, or was he aware of the work of Sándor Ferenczi, the Hungarian psychoanalyst, who described a similar theory in his work Thalassa.
(11) Edmée Santy, Ib.
(12) Stéphane Ollivier, "Léo Ferré." Historical context to video of Ferré singing Les Anarchistes at the Bobino concert, 01/01/1969, website of Institut National de l'Audiovisuel (INA). (http://fresques.ina.fr/jalons/fiche-media/InaEdu04750/leo-ferre.html (09/30/2016))