La Môme Piaf
I want to make people cry even when they don’t understand my words.
Edith Piaf
I celebrated my 65th birthday last week.
Thus, this week’s Reflection is that I am now of the age at which traditionally one retired from the world of work. But I’ve already been there and done that. In any event, my ‘official’ retirement age is sixty-six. I know for those younger than me, the retirement age is even higher. One wonders how long those born today may have to work before receiving a State Pension. Seventy. Seventy-five?
Part of my celebration was a trip from my home in Wiltshire to Nottingham. Why Nottingham you might ask? Well, a birthday present from my wife was a ticket to see a performance of ‘Piaf (In Person)’ at the Nottingham Playhouse.
I’ve always enjoyed the singing of Édith Piaf. Over the years, I’ve seen similar productions staged. I much enjoyed those, as I did that of last week. Jenna Russell in the title role offered a powerful performance. Her recreation of Édith Piaf’s voice was more laryngeal vibrato than Édith’s hammer vibrato but very creditable, nonetheless.
A measure of performance of Piaf! is whether I cried at the end. Yes, dear reader, I cried.
It isn’t just Édith’s voice (Jean Cocteau described it as being “like black velvet”) and the songs. Her life makes for a very watchable story. Her real name was Édith Gassion. Édith from Edith Cavell, a British nurse executed by the Germans in 1915 for helping French soldiers escape.
There are many legends about her early years. But what is fact is she began singing on the streets of Paris as a young teenager. A mother by seventeen (the child died aged two), Édith’s ‘discovery’ came two years later by a nightclub owner, Louis Leplée. Being so small (4' 8" with a size 3 shoe), Louis gave Édith the stage name La Môme Piaf (Parisian slang for ‘The Little Sparrow’). The stage name stuck.
Her fame began to spread through her nightclub singing, and records followed. But unfortunately, so did notoriety, as for a time it was thought she was involved in the subsequent murder of Louis.
In 1940 she made her first film, and despite the Germans occupying Paris, her career continued to flourish. She ‘walked a tightrope’ of performing for the occupiers and POWS, helping some of the latter’s escape. After the war, her fame spread around the world.
There were many men in Édith’s life, but her great love (despite the fact he was married) was Marcel Cerdan, a famous French boxer who died in a plane crash. Edith struggled with alcoholism and drug use all her life. Not helped by the tragedy of the death of her lover and car accidents in which she was severely injured. She died aged forty-seven.
Several Piaf songs are now known around the world. La Vie En Rose is her most famous. Indeed, it was the song that marked the entrance of my daughter-in-law to her marriage ceremony (although sung by Satchmo, not Édith).
Then, of course, there’s Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien, Milord, Padam Padam…
My choice however is this, the song that Piaf wrote in memory of Marcel Cerdan. What a voice ….
