Léo Ferré - 100 Years, 12. Songs about life Part II

In the late 1960s and 1970s Léo Ferré (1916 - 1993) left his wife Madeleine Rabereau and took back his freedom.  He was briefly involved in the May 68 events in Paris but returned to the South of France to set a number of his poems from Poète... vos papiers (Poet... your documents), poems he had written in 1956.  The albums L'Été 68 and Amour Anarchie included several of these songs. We start to hear rock sounds and a blend of singing and the spoken word.

La Nuit (The Night) was the first track on the Album Ferré 68 released in 1969. Other tracks on this album became better known, e.g. Pépée and C'est extra which we've already heard in a previous post, and especially by Les Anarchisteswhich will be covered in a later post on Ferré's political ideas.

It's my sister in black
The one I call Goodnight
It's a guy who has his goods
In the corner bar
At night
It's the bourgeois man who struts
Before the girls of the town
Who believes it's happening
And pays to go upstairs
At night
It's this lady who leaves
And gives up
And mixes with her lace
The tenderness of tin pans
At night
It's love dying
As soon as it starts
It's a thousand years of happiness
In a quick kiss
It's that girl who lost
The only flower she had
Sometimes you could find her
At night... at night...

It's the evening sun
Shining through one's robe
In the back of the store
Under the electric stoves
At night
It's the burglar who's going to work
Extra hours
And is not fussy
About welfare benefits
At night
It's the man who leaves holding
His Rolls at the end of his arms
And mixes to his strings
The treasure of the trash
At night
It's horses brought
To the derby of chops
Sheep walking
Next to the Vilette ⁽¹⁾
A soldier pursued
During his last round
Who counts the years
Like we count seconds
At night... at night...

It's a girlfriend who sells
What one usually takes
And who for a hundred coins more
Turns upside down
At night
It's a fresh breeze
For cheap loves
A small, hidden hotel
At mini prices
At night
It's a guy who transmits
Everything but holy water
And mixes to his hiccups
Perfume of Beaujolais
At night
It's the man who walks
In the night in full daylight
And his cane that drags him
Into the cars of Paris
It's the man who didn't see
Pity go by
And waits in the street
In case one would invent for him
The day... the day

Ecoute-moi (Listen) and Le Mal (Evil) both appeared on the second volume of the album Amour Anarchie (Love Anarchy) (1970). Ferré has now embraced his beatnik persona, electric guitars abound.

   - In Ecoute-moi Ferré imagines that in a far away century he will live on in his records.  He will be like  Lazarus.  His recorded voice will criss-cross the earth and soothe its future inhabitants.  Highly symbolic lyrics are  couched in a song full of rhythm and beat.

Écoute-moi, listen to me, ascoltame, Lazarus
When pendulums will sound their stellar voice
And avenues no longer hang out on earth
You will be able to get up in that bizarre century

I who sold Paris-Soirs ⁽²⁾ in Babylon
When jet planes had feathers
And yelled soft songs as in a foggy concert
Toward the East, with microphonic grooves

As long as I will breathe and have ink in my street
And the North Wind will open my lungs
A stubborn sea will reign over me
And hold my hand to the tide of dreams

Who will preach the passion of the Corton during mass
That red song redder than blood?
Who will preach the virginity of our caresses
When Jesus passes between our teeth?

Nothing is more beautiful than a lay morning in the mist
When the sun is still in the dorm
And the gauze in the plain fades away
As a grin of incense when the burner shakes

I live, from today on I am dead in wax
Like a long-playing record my voice criss-crosses an unknown earth
I am read anywhere at the hour of delirium
In the shadow of a juke-box where fairies arise

In the azure of the prison sprawled under memory
Maldoror in one hand and Sade in the pants
I'm of electroplated gold and wander
Under the diamond head of a crazy phonograph

My voice soon under the plastic moon
When my alleged frame will have faded
And Romeos in public places
Will willingly throw their line to cats in their nests

My voice will rock them in cradles of passage
Nest, my friend, and perch your goatee
Me, the lost shepherd who sniffs the track
Of my sheep freshly shaved for a new-look

Life is a barge where old tunes die
Tears are its tides, pain its roll
Once in a while happiness invents its sails
For this old tub that then is veiled and folds.

   - Le Mal, with the slow rhythm of a ballad, a descending melody, an engaging pop accompaniment, and an eroticized, religious language, paints the alluring qualities of 'evil,' while 'good,' remaining in the shadow, tries to find its way and wins out in the end.

Evil drags in your eyes
As an idea of crucifix
Evil walks in your hands
With a blushing old dream
In your heart evil gets drunk
From a few minutes of oblivion
And then in the shadow Good that flows
In the river of the night

In your eyes evil that loves itself
In a corner where I don't go
In your hands evil that gets away
And you let slip between your fingers
In your heart evil that consumes
The fire that never ends
And then in the shadow Good that foams
Like horses when starting a race

In your eyes evil gets dressed
To take me out in your land
In your hands evil grabs
The heavy loads of life
In your heart evil ends
In a tear and a cry
When in the shadow Good arises
Like day after night

Avec le temps (In time) (1970) was also intended for the Amour Anarchie album, but the label Barclay rejected it. It was released that same year as a solo record, and was finally included in the album Avec le temps (les chansons d'amour de Léo Ferré) (With time (love songs of Leo Ferre) (1972).

   In this simple ballad, using a sparse vocabulary, Ferré sings about the fleetingness of life, love and caring.  It became Ferré's greatest success. We first hear the master himself and then an interpretation by Patricia Kaas.

In time...
In time goes, it all goes away
We forget the face and we forget the voice
The heart, when it no longer beats, it's not worth
Searching any longer, we must let it go, and it's very good
In time...
In time, it goes, it all goes away
The other we adored, we searched in the rain
The other we understood at the turn of a glance
Between the words, between the lines and under the shade
Of a made-up promise leaving for the night

In time, it all vanishes

In time...
In time goes, it all goes away
Even the sweetest memories have one of those faces
At the Gallery. I poke around in the regions of death
On Saturday night when tenderness disappears by itself
In time...
In time, it goes, it all goes away
The other we believed for a little sniffle, for nothing
The other we gave wine and jewelry
For whom we would have sold our soul for a few pennies
Before which we dragged ourselves like dogs

In time goes, it all goes well

In time...
In time goes, it all goes away
We forget the passions and we forget the voices
Which told you very quietly the words of poor people
Don't come back too late, above all, don't catch a cold

In time...
In time goes, it all goes away
And we feel white like a tired horse
And we feel cold in a random bed
And we feel lonely, perhaps, but at peace
And we feel cheated by the lost years

Then really
In time we no longer love

Ferré sang La fleur de l'âge (The bloom of life) and Night and Day at the Olympia concert in Paris. The concert was recorded and released as a double album Seul en scène (Olympia 1972) (Solo in concert (Olympia 1972).

   -  La fleur de l'âge is a lovely song full of flowery allusions about the "bloom of life."

The bloom of life
It's an idea in your blouse
An idea of one night long
It's the olive tree in your abyss
When your heavy fruit fills me
And my beak smooths you
The bloom of life

Poppies are my friends
Then you give me yours
Your thoughts are my destiny
Then you think and all is well
Field flowers put on airs
Then you get away from it all  ⁽³⁾
To go to the desert
Of this love that is shaking
Words of love are like flowers
You can only spell them once ⁽⁴⁾
I love you here I love you there
I love you all at once
In your garden I've picked everything
Nothing remains for the two of us
But a bit of the sun of your life
A bit of snow in my hair.

The bloom of life
It's a spring that goes to bed
And that I will cut off also
It's scissors in your nocturnes
When tears break 
Into a thousand kernels of fog
The bloom of life

Beauties of the Night sleep during the day
And you are beautiful as night
And your violet is love
I who violate you madly
That folly that lasts a while
Like the time of Immortal Women
In the eternity of an instant
Which prolongs you and calls me
Words of love are like flowers
You can only pick them once
I love you some with all my heart
And I lose my leaves between your fingers
In my garden all is cut
Nothing remains for tomorrow
But a bit of my joy lost
In your heath of satin

The bloom of life
It's the future dying at dawn
When you forget that I forget you
It's lightening in your corolla
In the middle of the night
When you rally me

LIKE A SUN THAT RALLIES SHADOWS