Léo Ferré - 100 Years, 17. A voice of conscience (early 1960s)

In the 1960s Léo Ferré (1916 - 1993) was finally an established star. Gone were the days of poverty, his Bohemian life. With Madeleine on his side, his muse and support, Ferré was never more productive. And he seized upon the spirit of the time: 1960s Paris would be a center for communism, anarchism, and Ferré supported the movement in spirit and song.

Merde à Vauban (To hell with Vauban), set to lyrics of Pierre Seghers, was included in the 1960 Paname album. ⁽¹⁾

Between 1873 and 1938, the prison in Saint-Martin-de-Ré kept prisoners before they were shipped to the penal colonies in French Guiana or New Caledonia. ⁽³⁾

   In 1938 deportations stopped, and the Citadel became a regular prison which it still is to this day.

Convict in the penal colony of Vauban⁽²⁾
On the Isle of Ré
I eat black bread and white walls
On the Isle of Ré
In the city my sweetheart waits
But in twenty years I won't be anybody anymore for her
To hell with Vauban
Convict I am ball and chain
All that for nothing they've squeezed me
On the Isle of Ré it's for my own good
I see the clouds go by
Bursting Me I see the bloom of life fading away
To hell with Vauban

Convict here the ladies
On the Isle of Ré
Come near to see our wings cut down
On the Isle of Ré
Oh may never come the one
I loved so much for her I missed my escape
To hell with Vauban
Convict escape is up there
In the gray sky it disappears behind the bars
To Paris
Me I'm in the can with her
All the while dreaming of my love who is the most beautiful
To hell with Vauban

Convict the time which stretches so much
On the Isle of Ré
With its lice time eats away at you on the Isle of Ré
Where are your eyes where is your moth
With the wind sometimes it seems I touch them
To hell with Vauban
It's a small hearse all black
Narrow and old which will haul me away from here one evening
And it will be better
I will see the white road again
Feet first but I will sing from under my boards
To hell with Vauban

L'affiche rouge (Red Poster), set to text of Louis Aragon was included in the 1961 album Les Chansons d'Aragon (Songs of Aragon). In 1955 Louis Aragon wrote a poem Strophes pour se souvenir (Verses to remember) for the inauguration of the Rue du Groupe Manouchian (Groupe Manouchian Street) in Paris. Léo Ferré set the text to music four years later.

   The Manouchian Group was a group of 23 partisans of foreign origin who fought in the French Resistance movement during the second world war and paid for it with their life.

   Aragon's red poster resembles a stain of blood. Colors are gray, death is everywhere. Operations are clandestine, conducted at night. Inside the poem Aragon lets Manouchian speak, quoting from his last letter to Mélinée who managed to escape. The poem is a moving tribute to the courage of these men, foreigners yet brothers to the French people.

You didn't claim glory or tears
Nor an organ or last prayers
Eleven years already it goes fast eleven years
You simply used your weapons
Death does not blind the eyes of Partisans

Your pictures were pinned on the walls of our towns
Black of beard and threatening nights in disarray
The poster looking like a stain of blood
Because your names are difficult to pronounce
Tried to instill fear in passers-by

None seemed to consider you French by preference
People didn't look at you during daytime
But at the hour of curfew with errant fingers
Wrote under your photographs DEAD FOR FRANCE
And it changed the gloomy mornings.

Everything had the uniform color of white frost
At the end of February for your last moments
And that's when one of you said calmly
Happiness to all Happiness to those who will survive
I die without hate in me for the German people

Farewell pain and pleasure Farewell roses
Farewell life farewell light and wind
Get married be happy and think often of me
You who will remain in the beauty of things
When all will end later in Yerevan

A big winter sun illuminates the hill
How beautiful nature and how it breaks my heart
Justice will follow our triumphant steps
My Melinee Oh my love my orphan girl
And I tell you to live and to have a child

They were twenty-three when the guns went off
Twenty-three who gave their heart prematurely
Twenty-three foreigners and yet our brothers
Twenty-three loving life to the point of dying
Twenty-three shouting France while falling down

Miss guéguerre (Miss Squabble)⁽⁵⁾ was among the songs recorded in 1961 but not allowed release due to censure. They were finally published in 2003 on the album Les Chansons interdites... et autres (Forbidden songs... and others).  The song supports anti-war sentiment and conscientious objection.  France is considered war-happy.  Ferré reminds here of the ideas of the 19th century individual anarchist Bellegarrigue⁽⁶⁾ who famously stated:

Anarchy is order, government is civil war.

The song has a war beat rhythm and references o.a. to military garb and the French national songs.

If you don't want them
To shove a bag over your ear shells
Take your colback
An old tub and allegro
Ask the wind
To push you to the bottom of the building
If you don't want
"Allez z'enfants de la Patrie"
If you don't want
Glands to grow on your kepi ⁽⁷⁾
If you don't want to
Maybe it's your right

(Refrain:)
Miss Squabble
It's useless
You come on to me in vain
With your rataplan
Miss Squabble
Don't count on it
My name is Robinson
Hell of a name
Ah! ça ira, ça ira, ça ira
It will go, it will go, it will go ⁽⁸⁾
Fishing
Fishing

If you don't want them
To push a gun between your ten fingers
Don't be such a fool
Raise your shield and then, believe me
Ask those
Who did want it whether they came back
If you don't want
The gravedigger to toss you out
If you don't want
Flowers to grow on your sack
If you don't want to
Maybe it's your right

(Refrain:)
Miss Squabble
It's useless
You come on to me in vain
With your rataplan
Miss Squabble
Don't count on it
My name is Robinson
Hell of a name
Ah! ça ira, ça ira, ça ira
It will go, it will go, it will go ⁽⁸⁾
Fishing
Fishing

If you don't want them
To put a cross on your chest
If you don't want them
To talk about you in the past tense
If you don't want them
To make kids with your other half
While over there
Looking at you you're like a fool
If you don't want
The atom to spread in your area
If you don't want it
Maybe it's your right

Miss Squabble
It's useless
You come on to me in vain
Miss Guéguerre
With your rataplan
Miss Squabble
You exaggerate
One day we will go
Hell of a name
Ah! We will go, we will go, we will go
We will go, we will go, we will go
Hunting
Hunting

If Ferré was finally reaping financial rewards for his many years of artistic efforts, the songs he would be most famous for, his songs of protest and anarchy, were banned. This was the case with Thank you Satan which was ultimately released on the same album of forbidden songs.

   Ferré did perform the song live on several occasions, each time to much acclaim. Early on he introduced it as a commission from Satan himself. In the 1980s he dedicated it to Bobby Sands, a member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army who died on hunger strike in prison in 1981.

   In this slow ballad with a wind motive from the devil himself at the end of each stanza, Ferré takes up the Libertarian theme of Satan as hero of human liberty, a mythical figure in opposition to God, the theological-political authority. ⁽⁹⁾ It is interesting that the lyric Thank you Satan is stated in English. ⁽¹⁰⁾

For the flame you light
Deep inside a bed poor or rich
For the pleasure consumed there
In linen or satin
For the children you arouse
Inside cherub dormitories
For anonymous petals
Like the morning rose

Thank you Satan

For the thief you cover up
With your soft and ginger sweater
For the doors you open for him
Over the den of the rich
For the convict you watch
At the Abbey of Cat-Burglary ⁽¹¹⁾
For the rum you recommend to him
And the cigarette butt you help him to

Thank you Satan

For the stars you scatter
In the regrets of murderers
And for the heart that all the same beats
In the chest of working girls
For the ideas you make up
In the heads of citizens
For the storming of the Bastille
Even if it's no use

Thank you Satan

For the priest who gets frustrated
Over finding the gentle lamb
For the cheap wine
He takes for Château Margaux
For the anarchists to whom you give
The two colors of your country
Red for being born in Barcelona
Black for dying in Paris ⁽¹²⁾

Thank you Satan

For the anonymous grave
Dug for Mr. Mozart ⁽¹³⁾
Without cross, or anything, except for show,
A dog, undertaker of chance,
For the poets you slide
On the headboard of teenagers
When in the complicit shadow grow
The flowers of evil of age seventeen ⁽¹⁴⁾

Thank you Satan

For the sin you arouse
Inside the stiffest virtues
And for the boredom that will appear
In the corner of beds where you no longer are
For the blockheads you make graze
In the field like sheep
For your honor at not ever
Appearing on television

Thank you Satan

For all that and more
For the solitude of kings
The laughter of the heads of the dead
The means to twist the law
And that I not be shut up
And that I may sing for your good
In this world where muzzles
Are not made for dogs

THANK YOU SATAN!

Pacific blues is another banned song from the same posthumous album. It was written during the First Indochina War, recorded and destroyed during the Algerian conflict, and released during the Vietnam War.

   In this tender song which proceeds like a funeral march, we hear a dead soldier talking to us as in a dream.  He sees a beautiful lady in the rice fields who's waiting to take him on a date, just like she took away his soldier friends.

I return on the ship of the colonies
The colonies, it's a bit far but it's beautiful
There is sun
And big fields to hunt animals
Me, I don't like it.  They didn't do anything to me, I like them too much
I will talk to the captain about it
My little mom, I have a small hole, there in my heart
You have to hit the bull's eye every time and I've been afraid
Let's be clear, I have a date
With a lady whose arms are full of flowers
Arms one would say made for me on purpose

Small soldier will grow big
As long as God grants him life
The cross of honor, a bit of money
To take life for a spin
Small soldier will grow big
And will go away who knows how

I leave tonight on the ship of the colonies
In the rice fields, I have a date with my girlfriend
I've never met her
But my friends who left arm in arm
She must be great because we've never seen them again
I will talk to the captain about it
I hear it's a beautiful woman who's on the ball

Small soldier will grow big
As long as God grants him life
A beautiful flag and white gloves
With a touch of genius
Small soldier will grow big
And will leave feet first

Sans façon (Without ceremony) was included in the album Ferré 64.  The song implores government to leave citizens alone, especially those with dissenting views.

With your ceremonies your empires
You're becoming a nuisance
Go get dressed in civilian clothes
Let go of my bone

The Franks they're hard to convince
Put your uniform on a hanger
And let us face the music
Let go of our dice

Chance, we can manage it
We don't like too much being frayed
When our happiness is all dressed up
Pack it in

We have good economic sense
It's not necessary to explain then
That salted beef is not worth fillet
Let go

And as for the force to strike
We have our fists and then we hit
And it doesn't cost anything
Don't you understand?

And when you will leave all talk behind
They'll put you up in a cute clinic
With the Pantheon under your behind
As you wished

Hands stretched out eyes cast down
Here are the People of Paris
Who leave you their income
I wouldn't say no

And in the streets of Eighty-nine ⁽¹⁵⁾
Where blood flows that's still fresh
If you went there to go fry an egg
It would matter ⁽¹⁶⁾

Those streets know us
Since we pounded the pavements
When we waltzed with History
Draped in the Black Flag

If the Republic embarrasses you
All you have to do is go hunting
There will always be hungry dogs
To take your place

We're without ceremony without empire
That's maybe why we are allowed to die
But not before we lick the plates

You will leave behind...

Ni dieu ni maître (Neither God or Master) was released in 1965 as a single.  Its title is a slogan coined by the French socialist Louis Auguste Blanqui in 1880.  It became one of Ferré's emblematic songs.

The cigarette without a tie ⁽¹⁷⁾
We smoke at the democratic dawn
And the regrets of the condemned ⁽¹⁷⁾
With fear which holds out a paw
The ministry of that priest
And pity at the window
And the customer who perhaps has
NEITHER GOD, NOR MASTER

The pallid burden wrapped
As a packet to the stars
Falls cold on the slab
And this rose without petal
The lawyer with a briefcase
The dawn that puts a violet hue
On tears that perhaps have
NEITHER GOD, NOR MASTER

That woodwork they call justice ⁽¹⁸⁾
And that push to torture
And to dispense the Sacrifice
With the pine wood for the service ⁽¹⁹⁾
This procedure that lies in wait
For those Society rejects
Under the pretext that perhaps they have
NEITHER GOD, NOR MASTER

The words of the gospel
That make fools bend
And invest in civic horror
Nobility and also style
The cry that doesn't own a badge ⁽²⁰⁾
The word of the prophet
I claim and wish you
NEITHER GOD, NOR MASTER

_________________________________________________________
⁽¹⁾Paname was a nickname for Paris.
⁽²⁾ Vauban was the 17th century military engineer who built the fortification at Saint-Martin de Ré. He was known for his success in sieges, in attacking strong places, and for his design of fortifications.
⁽³⁾"Saint-Martin-de-Ré." Wikipedia entry, Fortifications section. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint-Martin-de-R%C3%A9 (01/07/2017))
⁽⁴⁾Allons enfants de la Patrie (Arise, children of the Fatherland) is the first line of the Marseillaise, the French national anthem.
⁽⁵⁾ The French word guéguerre is translated as squabble, conflict, fight, etc. The reduplication of "gué" has a diminutive effect on the word 'guerre (war)'.
⁽⁶⁾"Anselme Bellegarrigue." Wikipedia entry. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anselme_Bellegarrigue (01/11/2017))
⁽⁷⁾ In French slang 'gland' can mean 'male organ'.
⁽⁸⁾Ça Ira (It'll be fine, literally It will go) is one of the most famous songs from the French revolution.
⁽⁹⁾ Jean-Christophe Angaut, "Thank you, Satan!" Michel Bakounine blog, 02/22/2010.  (http://atelierdecreationlibertaire.com/blogs/bakounine/thank-you-satan-310/ (01/12/2017))  Already in 1849 the French anarchist Proudhon wrote God is Evil, Man is Free. The Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin (1814 - 1876) wrote God and the State which remained unfinished at his death and was published in 1882.
"⁽¹⁰⁾ On the Americanization of French song see Adeline Cordier, "The mediating of chanson: French identity and the myth Brel-Brassens-Ferré" Ph.D. thesis, University of Stirling, September 2008, pp. 202-203. (http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.902.8519&rep=rep1&type=pdf (01/14/2017))
⁽¹¹⁾'L'abbaye du monte en l'air (literally the abbey of climbing up in the air)' is a wordplay on 'l'abbaye du monte-à-regret (guillotine),' a seventeenth century colloquial expression for the guillotine. Monte-à-regret (climb to sorrow) probably derives from monte-à-regrès (climb backward), since the condemned had to step up to the guillotine backward.
⁽¹²⁾ In 1939 the Spanish Nationalist Army launched the Catalonia Offensive. Barcelona, and Catalonia as a whole, fell. Republican soldiers and civilians fled to France. 10,000 of them joined the French resistance. The Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT; "National Confederation of Labour"), a Spanish confederation of anarchic-syndicalist labor unions founded in Barcelona in 1910, was instrumental in the expansion of anarchism in Spain.  In 1936 during the Spanish RevolutionGeorge Orwell described the scene in Barcelona:

Practically every building of any size had been seized by the workers and was draped with red flags and with the red and black flag of the Anarchists.

⁽¹³⁾ For some details and misconceptions about Mozart's burial see here and here.
⁽¹⁴⁾Le Fleurs du Mal (Flowers of Evil) is the most famous collection of poems by Charles Baudelaire describing decadence and eroticism. Ferré devoted an entire album to Baudelaire in 1957.
⁽¹⁵⁾ In 1789 the French Revolution started. On June 12  'fear and violence consumed the capital'. On July 14 rioters stormed the Bastille.
⁽¹⁶⁾ The allusion to poverty and violence probably refers to the Parisian bidonvilles (shanty towns) which numbered 89, at least in the late 1960s, according to this Wikipedia article.
⁽¹⁷⁾Cigarette sans cravatte (Cigarette without a tie) shows the condemned smoking his last cigarette.  Prisoners are not allowed to wear a tie.  Cou-de-jatte literally means condemned to the guillotine.
⁽¹⁸⁾Les bois de justice refers to the guillotine.
⁽¹⁹⁾Le sapin de service refers to the cheap pinewood coffin used for executed prisoners.
⁽²⁰⁾ Rosette refers to the ribbon of honor worn by members of the Legion of Honour, France's highest order for military and civil merits.