Léo Ferré - 100 Years, 16. A voice of conscience (late 1940s - 50s)

Léo Ferré (1916 - 1993) is perhaps most known for his lifelong rebellion against abuse of power. His was a voice in defense of the downtrodden, those on the edge of society, those for whom nobody seems to care. This led him to literary anarchism and eventually to join the communist party.

Ferré first voiced his social concerns with songs about the Catholic Church, so-called friends, and well-to-do people faced with racism, poverty, and prostitution.

In 1949/50 Ferré penned Monsieur Tout Blanc (Mister in white). Censored on French radio it was only released in the 2000 posthumous album Le Temps des roses rouges (The time of red roses). Ferré asks Pope Pius XII to explain his silence during World War II when Jewish people were persecuted. ⁽¹⁾

Mister in White
You preach charity
Well ordered
In your Italian castles
Mister in White
Charity
It's very gentle
But what is it?
Explain to me

In those days I lived at Aubervilliers⁽²⁾
It's a small place at the end of misery
Where not too many questions are asked
To eat you have to work hard my little man

Mister in White
The wounded bird you each day
Consume
Was of a cursed race
Mister in White
Between us tellme
Remember
Not too long ago
You kept silent

In those days I lived at Aubervilliers
It wan't the time to say rosaries
There were many questions to ask
To last you must fight my little man

Mister in White
If you leave one good morning
Feet first
For your castles in paradise
Mister in White
Paradise
It's small and beautiful
Pray for me
I don't have the time

Because I'll still live in Aubervilliers
With two arms bound around my misery
We'll no longer have that many questions to ask
In life we need to love each other my little man

Mister in White
If I taught charity
Well ordered
In my castles at Aubervilliers
Mister in White
It's not you
I'll look up
To tell me
What to give

Barbarie (Barrel Organ) dates from 1950 and appeared in the same posthumous album. In a very soft tone and the turning rhythm of a barrel organ Ferré slowly exposes a barbaric street scene.

In the anonymous street
There are Jesuses everywhere,
Who beg for a dime
With morose eyes...

Barbarie, give him a few coins;
Barbarie, oh, this bittersweet air
Barbarie, after all I don't care...

In the street of sins
There are girls of love,
Who put their fresh flesh
In the stall of intersections...

Barbarie, keep your shield up,
Barbarie, you wanted it,
Barbarie, there is a remedy...

In the nauseous street
There was a murderer,
Who gave a bloodletting
To a gallant pilgrim...

Barbarie, it was an accident,
Barbarie, leaving the hotel,
Barbarie, the sin was mortal...

In the infamous street
That leads to the pine chest, ⁽³⁾
Wash your dirty linen,
But beware of bumps...

Barbarie, if you want love,
Barbarie, beware of speeches,
Barbarie, happiness is so brief...

Judas appeared in 1953 on Ferré's caleidoscopic first album Paris Canaille. Here Ferré examines how someone who claimed to be his best friend, and how much this hurt his feelings.

I don't blame you, my old Iscariot
You gave me away for a few coins
Probably you had your reasons
I don't blame you, my old Iscariot

It's not your fault if you're like that
But what hurts me, oh, not that much
It's that you said you were my true buddy
Like they're no longer made on Earth
And then, you must be joking, you got me
Like a filthy beggar, like a poor chap
That's, you see, what exasperates me
Your bowing and scraping
Your hugs, etcetera

With a face like yours
Bravo, my old man, hats off, my man!
You have talent, you must push yourself
You should fall for the cops
We're cushy, we can betray
Only you see, one must choose
To be disgusting or lord
You, you don't hurt, you don't have a heart

I don't blame you, my old Iscariot
It's not your fault, it's in your skin
They're powerful things, banknotes
But another time, give it to me straight
Come and see me and I'll give you a price
I'm not complaining about what I say to you
You didn't consider my standing
You were wrong and that's too bad

Next time don't forget it
My old friend My old Judas
I was worth a lot more than that

Graine d'ananar (Anar seed) and Merci mon Dieu (Thank you Lord) were both included in the 1954 album Le Piano du pauvre (The poor man's piano [i.e. the accordion])

- In Graine d'ananar  Ferré expresses 'his anger against a society that refuses to understand him'⁽⁴⁾ and proclaims to be an anar seed, anar being short for anarchist . ⁽⁵⁾

   In the second verse he describes a man hung on the gallows, a theme Ferré would take up from time to time. ⁽⁶⁾ Léo Ferré was not the only artist doing this.  50 years earlier Maurice Ravel who possessed an unerring moral compass, wrote Gaspard de la nuit, a piano suite based on three hellish poems. Le Gibet (The Gallows), the second, paints the lone corps of a hanged man viewed against a desert horizon. In 1939 Billie Holiday sang Strange Fruit, an unforgettable song.

Life has double-crossed me
It's not normal
For a poor lazybones
Who lives by chance
In society
But society,
I don't want to get involved
I'm a different guy
An anar seed

I'm told I grew
Under the gallows
Where my grandfather
Already swung
On a collar,
A collar braided
With hemp he was
A damn scarf
With anar seed

I had friends
Who ate my bread
Since bread is made
To share
In our society
I'm not the one saying it
It's Jesus Christ
A damn talker
With an anar face

If I had money
I would be asked
"Where did you earn it
Without having slaved away
For society?"
But since I don't have any
I have to explain why
It's never easy
The anar seed

I'm told it's over
I'm telling you the way it's said
And that they'll hang me
In the name of the law
And society
Beautiful society
Which starts to meddle
To shelve
The anar seed

Gallows of oblivion
The bird makes its nest
Gentlemen ravens
Will break through my skin
Like through a sieve
But first
I'll have like the wind
Sowed somewhere
My anar seed

- Merci Mon Dieu, sung like a litany, talks about hunger, poverty, war, death, and crucifixion.

From our dens of white sheets
From our eaten away pallets full of dreams,
From our bread now and then
And our crumbs to sink or swim
With life right in the middle,
And then hunger that stirs us up,
We say: "Thank you Lord!"

From our shorted salaries
Which lengthen our embarrassment,
From the gold that grows on the four Thursdays,
Of our eternal weeks
With rage right in the middle,
And then envy that bullies us,
We say: "Thank you Lord!"

Form our earth with heaven lost,
From our scarred guns,
From our children who couldn't
turn aside the bitter chalice
With war right in the middle
And then the hero who steps into it,
We say:  "Thank you Lord!"

From horses of posthumous oats
That drag their last convoy,
From lost dogs which are dispatched
To their last pee on a cross
With death right in the middle,
And pity that consumes us,
We say:  "Thank you Lord!"

From that cross on Golgotha
That crucifies so many bosoms,
And your son who did it only
For nothing and the thorns
With love right in the middle,
And then your heaven we imagine,
We say: "Why my Lord!"

La vie moderne (Modern Life) was included in the 1958 album Encore du Léo Ferré (More Leo Ferre). On the album the song has thirteen verses and is over seven minutes long. It is recited in a fast tempo on a minimalist tune invoking the fast pace and superficiality of modern life. In the 1980s Ferré performed the song life in an abbreviated version, omitting verses that became less comprehensible over the years and added two new more timeless ones. We first hear the original song and then a 1984 performance at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées.

⁽⁷⁾⁽⁸⁾
My father had fourteen kids
But if I get you dressed at Dior now
No relation of course
My virtue has no defense
Never did anyone know
Me when I knew there was nothing left

Modern life, modern life

⁽⁷⁾⁽⁸⁾
I had a nose like Cyrano
Big, remarkable, funny
A true radar for a gigolo
Since they've put it back on
In a cheap clinic
I can no longer sniff fools

Modern life, modern life

⁽⁷⁾⁽⁸⁾
With ten rounds of fertilizing
Biology makes kids
Who enter their mom by themselves
In the labs there are some with horns
And in the street there are no more cuckolds
The hen makes an egg but no longer sings

Modern life, modern life

⁽⁸⁾
Girls had pulled stockings
And openwork panties
That brightened your sunset
Today they have tights
That stick to their lover's eyes
And love dies with tissue stuck behind

Modern life, modern life

⁽⁸⁾
There's a bird that just cried
There's a strike in the Milky Way
There no more windows in the house
We get killed it's a steel bird
That got pissed off in your area
And crosses the wall of idiots

Modern life, modern life

⁽⁷⁾⁽⁸⁾
In the factories there's no longer anybody
It's neater when Noon strikes
And Miss Robot danses the polka
There are electronic bolts
That screw on by themselves it's fantastic
And who never join a union

Oh well, but that's interesting

Modern life, modern life

⁽⁷⁾⁽⁸⁾
Newspapers are like bandages
They must be changed from time to time
Otherwise it offends your ideas
And anyway one doesn't need ideas
Because ideas it makes you think
And thoughts make you cry

Ask for modern life, ask for modern life!

Modern life, modern life

⁽⁷⁾⁽⁸⁾
There's a gentleman who comes to me
Each time he enters it's with the right foot
The left one is for good manners
He reads Sagan and the rest
As to Balzac he wonders whether
It's gasman or a notary

Balzac, Balzac, wait, I think I've heard of him

Modern life, modern life

⁽⁷⁾⁽⁸⁾
There are people who act "exotic"
Who to eat the ace of spades
Would even go the Chinese ⁽⁹⁾
Me without visa or prospectus
With a book of bus tickets
I see lots of people even Americans/and I don't go far

Modern life, modern life

Excuse me Sir to the Chinese? To the Chinese, you get off at Nation and there you turn right or left. Well, you ask there. Goodbye.

⁽⁷⁾⁽⁸⁾
The stores are overfilled
They sell paper crowns
Of the sort that won't be stolen
Handkerchiefs that only serve once
This way at least we know why
For what we have ten fingers

Modern life, modern life

⁽⁷⁾⁽⁸⁾
It's like washing machines
It washes the whole area
And it happens incognito
It's not like the ones in Portugal
If they washed up there wouldn't be trouble
But they strike back on the radio

Modern life, modern life

⁽⁷⁾⁽⁸⁾
Glory is like sex appeal
One needs rimmel or it steals away
Or ends in gossip
One must treat it like a girlfriend
Here or there or at Maxim's
And then add it down in to the Directory

Modern life, modern life

⁽⁷⁾⁽⁸⁾
Nature is all folly,
In the trenches there is noise,
It's the Marseillaise of Spring,
The trees' leaves act pretty,
There's chlorophyll in the bed
To rinse the eye and then the teeth

Modern life, modern life

Smile, but smile!

⁽⁷⁾⁽⁸⁾
Grandma had long hair
Grandpa put it in a bun
Cooing like a pigeon
Your fellow rolls his cigarette butts
While wondering which bastard
Ate the wheat from your back

Modern life, modern life

⁽⁷⁾⁽⁸⁾
In New York there were homes
That tickled the feet of the Boss
That measured 45 acres
In Paris there are basements
Where one speaks in flats
That scrape the sky like a guitar

Modern life, modern life

__________________________________________________________________
⁽¹⁾ For more details about Pope Pius XII's silence read J blot, "Léo Ferré: Monsieur tout blanc." French post at L'Histgeobox, 01/07/2010. (http://lhistgeobox.blogspot.com/2010/01/197-leo-ferre-monsieur-tout-blanc.html (12/31/2016)).
⁽²⁾Aubervilliers, an industrial suburb of Paris, attracted workers from many countries at the end of the 19th century. Life and work conditions improved with social legislation. The town first became a hotspot of anarchy and libertarian groups before becoming a bastion of communism.
⁽³⁾'Sapin' means 'pine tree.' In French colloquial it often denotes a cheap coffin made of pine wood.
⁽⁴⁾ Adeline Cordier, "Post-War French Popular Music: Cultural Identity and the Brel-Brassens-Ferré Myth.""Ferré the Anarchist" section, Routledge, Apr 8, 2016. (https://books.google.com/books?id=fQztCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT36&lpg=PT36&dq=une+%22graine+d%27ananar%22+analyse&source=bl&ots=rs0qNF7XMc&sig=nUbKaNX9jj-SC2KSQjze6Mzo4Cw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjG-OOXw6fRAhVsxoMKHZpDAnQQ6AEISjAH#v=onepage&q=une%20%22graine%20d'ananar%22%20analyse&f=false (01/03/2017))
⁽⁵⁾ The pomegranate is an ancient Persian fruit often credited with many therapeutic effects.  In Judaism it is often used as a symbol of righteousness.  With Ferré the anar seed takes on a meaning of 'odd seed,' one that goes against the grain, a sign of his incipient anarchism.
⁽⁶⁾ Francis Delval, "Léo Ferré et les philosophes (Leo Ferre and the philosophers)." Post at Léo Ferré Etudes et Propos, 06/09/2008. (http://leoferre.hautetfort.com/archive/2008/06/09/leo-ferre-et-les-philosophes-par-francis-delval.html (01/03/2017))
⁽⁷⁾ Verse included in the 1958 version.
⁽⁸⁾ Verse included in the 1980s version
⁽⁹⁾'Au Pékin' means 'In Beijing', a name given to many Chinese restaurants in France.