Throughout his life Léo Ferré (1916 - 1993) was a keen observer of what was going on around him. For him everyday life, how people act and interact, was a never ending source of inspiration. In this post we will see some of Ferré's observations about men and women. They are satirical, sad, and funny.
L'Homme (The Man) (1950) paints the picture of a bourgeois man in fine clothes who makes some escapades with the maid or between the end of the workday and the return home ("The 5 to 7s, unseen uncaught"). That same man later ends up alone with only a dog for a friend and eventually meets the 'gardener of the prime of life.' (1) This man goes to war, loves democracy, wears a suit with a pocket handkerchief, and resolves life's complexities at the bar. In his old age he goes to funerals not remembering his age. He finally rests sad and ice cold, far from the song of mandolins, eating dandelions from the root. (2)Catherine Sauvage who met Ferré in 1950 and won the prestigious Grand Prix du Disque for this song, is the performer here.
Les bonnes manières (Good manners) and Plus jamais (Never again) were included on the 1962 album La Langue française (The French language).
Les bonnes manières is a sweet little song about a lover who says it the way he wants to. Catherine Sauvage, Ferré's early interpreter, again does the honors.
Plus jamais is about a woman who wants it all here and now while 'she waits worrying, and crying behind the laughs, that an indiscreet clock will come and whisper "Never again."' Among the things she wants are: sparkling jewels, tough guys, kisses, thoughts one sees in the street on the arms of other women, pleasures, smiles, romantic car trips, perfumes, furs, beautiful calendars with a rising sun when night falls in a bed of fortune, vows, a rose, and it becomes very passionate toward the end.
Le bonheur (Happiness) appeared on the 1967 album Cette Chanson (This Song) sings of an adulterous woman at a time when adultery is still illegal. Ferré wonders whether an adulterous woman can find happiness. This song 'upset the social standards of sweet Gaullist France.'(3) Even though Ferré acknowledges female adultery, one cannot help but notice the different treatment he gives L'Homme and Madame, undoubtedly a reflection of accepted norms in 1960s France.
L'amour fou (Mad love) and Cette blessure (This wound) were both part of the second volume of the double album Amour Anarchie (1970). (4) In this album Ferré 'begins to blend singing with dynamic spoken word.' In a time when 'making music became a political act,'(5) Ferré 'claims his difference and rejects societal hypocrisy.'(6)
In L'amour fou Ferré describes, in the first person, a man madly in love with a sixteen-year old and declares repeatedly Je vous aime d'amour (I love you of love). Ferré first sees his love holding the sea within, as a present, wrapped in waves, a frigate of the high seas....
Cette blessure'evokes simultaneously physical love and the birth of life and their inseparable connection. Inevitably, death is mentioned at the end of the song, a symbol of sexual excitement, thereby coupling, as lyrical poets always do, love with death. The ultimate verse: 'This wound of which I die,' is ambiguous and can be understood in different ways: "of which I die with envy,""of which I die" (orgasm), and "in which I die" (because I was born, and life and death are similar).'(7)
La damnation and Les Oiseaux du malheur (Birds of misfortune) were both on the 1974 album L'espoir (Hope).
In La damnation one recognizes Léo Ferré's judeo-christian education which links femininity with bad luck. The original sin is feminine, and woman is presented as a bird of misfortune. Woman is also the cause of man's damnation:
In Les Oiseaux du malheur (Birds of misfortune) Ferré compares woman with the beauty and grace of magnificent birds. The orchestral accompaniment portrays their circling, gliding flight. Many have talked about Ferré's misogyny. A song like this refutes this idea. Woman appears in his work sometimes vilified, sometimes at the pinnacle. She seems in any case always renewed or reinvented, always sought or fantasized, always new. (8)
La Voyeuse visiteuse (The voyeuristic visitor) was on the Ludwig disc of the triple album Ludwig - L'Imaginaire - Le Bateau ivre (1982). The text came from Ferré's 1979 book La Méthode in which he lays down a series of 15 regulations that take aim at indifference and apathy and is written as a legal code. In Article 5. Throw up oneself, from which the text of La voyeuse visiteuse is taken, he exclaims: Everyone has a bitch somewhere, I have one here and there and at Cahors.
Ferré very seldom directly identified the people he portrayed in his songs. That was not his goal. He focused on behavior. In this case we are transported to Ferré's Castle of Pechrigal at Saint-Clair in the French Lot Department, commonly called Cahors by the Ferrés. We learn more from the writer Maurice Frot, Ferré's libertarian friend and right arm, who jotted down some notes during a visit at the castle. Frot witnessed an argument between Ferré and a female neighbor and friend who had supported Madeleine during their difficult break-up. During the argument this woman took Madeleine's side. According to Frot, she became la salope de Cahors in Ferré's writings.
Apparently, this lady attacked Ferré no holds barred, and Ferré found her intrusion inexcusable.
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(1) The French expression is 'La Fleur de L'age,' literally 'The Flower of Life.'
(2) Eating dandelions by the root is a metaphor for the buried body that eats the dandelions that grow above it.
(3) Mathieu Dejean, "Dix chansons qui ont fait de Léo Ferré le plus visionnaire des rappeurs français (Ten songs that made Leo Ferre the most visionary of French rappers)." Article, les inrocks website, 8/24/2016. (http://www.lesinrocks.com/2016/08/24/musique/dix-chansons-qui-ont-fait-de-leo-ferre-le-plus-visionnaire-des-rappeurs-francais-11859508/ (10/05/2016))
(4) In Rolling Stone magazine's 2010 ranking of French rock albums Amour Anarchie ranked 24th.
(5) Kieron Tyler, "Reissue CDs Weekly: German Measles, Mobilisation Générale." Article, artsdesk.com website, 12/15/2013. (http://www.theartsdesk.com/new-music/reissue-cds-weekly-german-measles-mobilisation-g%C3%A9n%C3%A9rale (10/05/2016))
(6)"Amour Anarchie." Wikipedia entry. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amour_Anarchie (10/05/2016))
(7) Jacques Layani, "La blessure et la source." Article, Léo Ferré Etudes et Propos website, 10/15/2007. (http://leoferre.hautetfort.com/archive/2007/10/15/la-blessure-et-la-source.html#more (10/05/2016))
(8) Stéphane Oron, "L’amante, la vestale et la muse: La Femme Dans L’Oeuvre de Léo Ferré (Lover, Vestal and Muse: the Woman in the work of Leo Ferre)." Presentation, Francofolies de La Rochelle, Place de la Motte Rouge, 07/12/2008. (http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:rbc8oUF0hcYJ:www.lehall.com/conferences/ferre/conf/docs/conf_ferre.doc+&cd=14&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us (10/07/2016))
L'Homme (The Man) (1950) paints the picture of a bourgeois man in fine clothes who makes some escapades with the maid or between the end of the workday and the return home ("The 5 to 7s, unseen uncaught"). That same man later ends up alone with only a dog for a friend and eventually meets the 'gardener of the prime of life.' (1) This man goes to war, loves democracy, wears a suit with a pocket handkerchief, and resolves life's complexities at the bar. In his old age he goes to funerals not remembering his age. He finally rests sad and ice cold, far from the song of mandolins, eating dandelions from the root. (2)Catherine Sauvage who met Ferré in 1950 and won the prestigious Grand Prix du Disque for this song, is the performer here.
Les bonnes manières (Good manners) and Plus jamais (Never again) were included on the 1962 album La Langue française (The French language).
Les bonnes manières is a sweet little song about a lover who says it the way he wants to. Catherine Sauvage, Ferré's early interpreter, again does the honors.
I talk my wayAnd the last verse:
When it's dark, I say words to you
That topple good manners
Which will never have enough nerve
When I take you for a piano
I play airs for you my way
If by accident you lose the "do"
I find you at the unison
I talk my way
When it's dark, I make life for you
By talking good manners
Which one doesn't learn at city hall
...
I talk your way
My words, you, you engrave them
In your little phonographic head
When I won't be there anymore, you will make it spin
Plus jamais is about a woman who wants it all here and now while 'she waits worrying, and crying behind the laughs, that an indiscreet clock will come and whisper "Never again."' Among the things she wants are: sparkling jewels, tough guys, kisses, thoughts one sees in the street on the arms of other women, pleasures, smiles, romantic car trips, perfumes, furs, beautiful calendars with a rising sun when night falls in a bed of fortune, vows, a rose, and it becomes very passionate toward the end.
Le bonheur (Happiness) appeared on the 1967 album Cette Chanson (This Song) sings of an adulterous woman at a time when adultery is still illegal. Ferré wonders whether an adulterous woman can find happiness. This song 'upset the social standards of sweet Gaullist France.'(3) Even though Ferré acknowledges female adultery, one cannot help but notice the different treatment he gives L'Homme and Madame, undoubtedly a reflection of accepted norms in 1960s France.
Madame?
Where are you running to in silence
Away from the hustle and bustle of the street
Madame?
You're going to your lover
While your husband works
...
Where are you running to amidst all the noise
And the silence of duty
You're going to your husband
While the Other rests
Happiness isn't much
It's sorrow at rest
Then
Don't wake it
Happiness...
WHAT IS IT?
L'amour fou (Mad love) and Cette blessure (This wound) were both part of the second volume of the double album Amour Anarchie (1970). (4) In this album Ferré 'begins to blend singing with dynamic spoken word.' In a time when 'making music became a political act,'(5) Ferré 'claims his difference and rejects societal hypocrisy.'(6)
In L'amour fou Ferré describes, in the first person, a man madly in love with a sixteen-year old and declares repeatedly Je vous aime d'amour (I love you of love). Ferré first sees his love holding the sea within, as a present, wrapped in waves, a frigate of the high seas....
I will tell you words of love
Insignificant words of everyday
Words of the worst and the best
And then words that came from elsewhere
...
If you're sixteen and a bit
Between the two of us it makes many years
That I prepare my ship
To row you insanity
...
If death had your gaze
I die tonight without looking
And will ask you for my share
At the brink of emptiness and kisses
Love only dies at night
...
While you are charmed
I will give you the child
You have never been
You have never been
I love you of love
Cette blessure'evokes simultaneously physical love and the birth of life and their inseparable connection. Inevitably, death is mentioned at the end of the song, a symbol of sexual excitement, thereby coupling, as lyrical poets always do, love with death. The ultimate verse: 'This wound of which I die,' is ambiguous and can be understood in different ways: "of which I die with envy,""of which I die" (orgasm), and "in which I die" (because I was born, and life and death are similar).'(7)
La damnation and Les Oiseaux du malheur (Birds of misfortune) were both on the 1974 album L'espoir (Hope).
In La damnation one recognizes Léo Ferré's judeo-christian education which links femininity with bad luck. The original sin is feminine, and woman is presented as a bird of misfortune. Woman is also the cause of man's damnation:
Damnation as a triangle Which disappears under your smooth voice ...It's eternity unleashedAnd death pulling it off ...All that's bad, is good
In Les Oiseaux du malheur (Birds of misfortune) Ferré compares woman with the beauty and grace of magnificent birds. The orchestral accompaniment portrays their circling, gliding flight. Many have talked about Ferré's misogyny. A song like this refutes this idea. Woman appears in his work sometimes vilified, sometimes at the pinnacle. She seems in any case always renewed or reinvented, always sought or fantasized, always new. (8)
They have beaks, they have piercing eyes
Like women
Birds of misfortune
They have grace and fly adorably
Like women ...
They have feet and walk in the wind ...
They have nests with all our children
Like women...
That's whom we sleep with
That's why we die
Trying to teach them
Doubt and misery
Come with your beak
With your eyes
With your grace, with your legs, come
With your nest, with my child
My beautiful bird of misfortune
They have beaks, they have piercing eyes
La Voyeuse visiteuse (The voyeuristic visitor) was on the Ludwig disc of the triple album Ludwig - L'Imaginaire - Le Bateau ivre (1982). The text came from Ferré's 1979 book La Méthode in which he lays down a series of 15 regulations that take aim at indifference and apathy and is written as a legal code. In Article 5. Throw up oneself, from which the text of La voyeuse visiteuse is taken, he exclaims: Everyone has a bitch somewhere, I have one here and there and at Cahors.
Ferré very seldom directly identified the people he portrayed in his songs. That was not his goal. He focused on behavior. In this case we are transported to Ferré's Castle of Pechrigal at Saint-Clair in the French Lot Department, commonly called Cahors by the Ferrés. We learn more from the writer Maurice Frot, Ferré's libertarian friend and right arm, who jotted down some notes during a visit at the castle. Frot witnessed an argument between Ferré and a female neighbor and friend who had supported Madeleine during their difficult break-up. During the argument this woman took Madeleine's side. According to Frot, she became la salope de Cahors in Ferré's writings.
Apparently, this lady attacked Ferré no holds barred, and Ferré found her intrusion inexcusable.
Stretched out in this Blame Street
You ran over me like a tank
...
She flogged me some flowers
Question of showing her good heart
Well, lady! A heart, it must shine
---
The hole you where peeping through
It was my escape in the night
It was
__________________________________________________________________
(1) The French expression is 'La Fleur de L'age,' literally 'The Flower of Life.'
(2) Eating dandelions by the root is a metaphor for the buried body that eats the dandelions that grow above it.
(3) Mathieu Dejean, "Dix chansons qui ont fait de Léo Ferré le plus visionnaire des rappeurs français (Ten songs that made Leo Ferre the most visionary of French rappers)." Article, les inrocks website, 8/24/2016. (http://www.lesinrocks.com/2016/08/24/musique/dix-chansons-qui-ont-fait-de-leo-ferre-le-plus-visionnaire-des-rappeurs-francais-11859508/ (10/05/2016))
(4) In Rolling Stone magazine's 2010 ranking of French rock albums Amour Anarchie ranked 24th.
(5) Kieron Tyler, "Reissue CDs Weekly: German Measles, Mobilisation Générale." Article, artsdesk.com website, 12/15/2013. (http://www.theartsdesk.com/new-music/reissue-cds-weekly-german-measles-mobilisation-g%C3%A9n%C3%A9rale (10/05/2016))
(6)"Amour Anarchie." Wikipedia entry. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amour_Anarchie (10/05/2016))
(7) Jacques Layani, "La blessure et la source." Article, Léo Ferré Etudes et Propos website, 10/15/2007. (http://leoferre.hautetfort.com/archive/2007/10/15/la-blessure-et-la-source.html#more (10/05/2016))
(8) Stéphane Oron, "L’amante, la vestale et la muse: La Femme Dans L’Oeuvre de Léo Ferré (Lover, Vestal and Muse: the Woman in the work of Leo Ferre)." Presentation, Francofolies de La Rochelle, Place de la Motte Rouge, 07/12/2008. (http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:rbc8oUF0hcYJ:www.lehall.com/conferences/ferre/conf/docs/conf_ferre.doc+&cd=14&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us (10/07/2016))