GEORGES BRASSENS AND HIS ART
George Brassens (1921-81) is little-known in the US but a legend in France. These are two faces of the same coin, since his quintessential French-ness endears him to his countrymen but lessens his accessibility to outsiders. He was a native son of Sète in southern France and projected the "bonhomie" of its populace. Libertarian inclinations fueled his lyrical criticisms since he had no shortage of targets. At first, he wrote poems hoping that others would sing them but was pulled against his grain to perform them himself despite debilitating stage fright (“le trac”).
Brassens was an autodidact and a voracious reader of literature and poetry. He had plenty of disposable time to do so while in hiding from the Germans during the war. After serving as conscript labor for the Germans at a BMW plant in Germanuy, he went AWOL and hid out in Paris. As a result, his songs are peppered with esoteric references that appeal to cognioscenti. He became a comfortable national treasure to many French people with his pipe, cat, polo sweater, moustache, southern accent and guitar. His performance style was spare, with only a guitar, a bassist, and a chair. His songs have catchy, foot-tapping tunes with simple instrumentation about everyday subjects with which people can relate and that drip with wit, humor, sarcasm, irony, malice, sadness, joy and even (sometimes) love and respect.
Brassens’ mastery of distillation was evident in his authorship of nicknames for people that capture essential qualities, like “Gibraltar” (Pierre Onténiente), “Father Brel” (Jacques Brel), “Socrates” (Jacques Canetti), “Puppchen” (Joha Heiman), and “l’Auvergnat” (Marcel Planche). This talent also is apparent in the incisive titles of his songs and the iconic caricatures or images that populate his lyrics (“les brav’s gens,” "les copains,” “la Parapluie,” “bonhomme”). Like Proust’s "Madeleine," these words summon associated sentiments for those familiar with their context. In an odd sort of reversal, one finds occasional reference to Brassens as “Brens,” as though the “ass” was dropped intentionally to abbreviate his name. Listening and watching his performances, one gets the impression of struggle to squeeze his contorted lyrics onto the runaway train of his music. It’s a narrow and precarious tightrope without stumbling. The appreciation of his admirers upon conclusion of many of his songs suggests relief that he survived without a fall.
Brassens’ poetic inclinations and phrasing and his frequent use of esoteric words impede both understanding and translation. The many explanatory footnotes needed to elucidate most of his songs divert attention from the songs themselves, although it gives them a cultish vibe like that of Jacques Brel. Their rich wrapping in French culture limits their resonance outside France. Like his contemporaries Jacques Prévert and Serge Gainsbourg, Brassens orchestrates complicated puns and wordplay in ways that make sense only to persons with sufficient knowledge of the conventional language and expressions to know the difference. French musician and translator Pierre de Gaillande has tackled the translation and performance of Brassens songs in English on three albums titled “Bad Reputation.” Kudos to blogger David Yendley for his extensive translations and notes of Brassens that are available online, and to Project Brassens and Analyse Brassens. He is a well-studied artist.
The mention of Brassens’ name often invites comparisons with Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan (pre-Newport). Such comparisons rest on apparent similarities but generally leave differences less explored. The similarities include their status as singer-songwriters who write, compose and perform their own material, employ acoustic guitar with its intimacy of audience connection, solo performances, and frequent lyrical concerns with issues of politics and society.
Brassens, however, was distinctly French in culture, experience and language. To understand his music, one must understand Brassens himself as well as the context of French culture that elicited his songs. Given his restricted living circumstances at the Impasse Florimont in Montparnasse, the scope of his experience was limited and he drew subject matter for songs primarily from his personal experiences and observations. Brassens was a rebellious, libertarian renegade, and it was the specific context of rigid socio-cultural conventions that not only brought his thumb to his nose but fostered his unconventionally raunchy verbiage.
Satire, wit, humor and “argot” (slang) arising from the granularity of French culture are all difficult to appreciate through the lens of another culture. To paraphrase Tolstoy, each country is unhappy in its own way. Dominant threads in French culture are hierarchy, top-down authority relations, and strict social norms of behavior. Brassens lampooned the self-righteousness and hypocrisy that he saw in conservative French society. Many of his songs are critical and satirical about religion, bourgeois values, marriage, military, police, social mores and even language. As he wrote in “La Non-Demande en Mariage:”
George Brassens (1921-81) is little-known in the US but a legend in France. These are two faces of the same coin, since his quintessential French-ness endears him to his countrymen but lessens his accessibility to outsiders. He was a native son of Sète in southern France and projected the "bonhomie" of its populace. Libertarian inclinations fueled his lyrical criticisms since he had no shortage of targets. At first, he wrote poems hoping that others would sing them but was pulled against his grain to perform them himself despite debilitating stage fright (“le trac”).
Brassens was an autodidact and a voracious reader of literature and poetry. He had plenty of disposable time to do so while in hiding from the Germans during the war. After serving as conscript labor for the Germans at a BMW plant in Germanuy, he went AWOL and hid out in Paris. As a result, his songs are peppered with esoteric references that appeal to cognioscenti. He became a comfortable national treasure to many French people with his pipe, cat, polo sweater, moustache, southern accent and guitar. His performance style was spare, with only a guitar, a bassist, and a chair. His songs have catchy, foot-tapping tunes with simple instrumentation about everyday subjects with which people can relate and that drip with wit, humor, sarcasm, irony, malice, sadness, joy and even (sometimes) love and respect.
Brassens’ mastery of distillation was evident in his authorship of nicknames for people that capture essential qualities, like “Gibraltar” (Pierre Onténiente), “Father Brel” (Jacques Brel), “Socrates” (Jacques Canetti), “Puppchen” (Joha Heiman), and “l’Auvergnat” (Marcel Planche). This talent also is apparent in the incisive titles of his songs and the iconic caricatures or images that populate his lyrics (“les brav’s gens,” "les copains,” “la Parapluie,” “bonhomme”). Like Proust’s "Madeleine," these words summon associated sentiments for those familiar with their context. In an odd sort of reversal, one finds occasional reference to Brassens as “Brens,” as though the “ass” was dropped intentionally to abbreviate his name. Listening and watching his performances, one gets the impression of struggle to squeeze his contorted lyrics onto the runaway train of his music. It’s a narrow and precarious tightrope without stumbling. The appreciation of his admirers upon conclusion of many of his songs suggests relief that he survived without a fall.
Brassens’ poetic inclinations and phrasing and his frequent use of esoteric words impede both understanding and translation. The many explanatory footnotes needed to elucidate most of his songs divert attention from the songs themselves, although it gives them a cultish vibe like that of Jacques Brel. Their rich wrapping in French culture limits their resonance outside France. Like his contemporaries Jacques Prévert and Serge Gainsbourg, Brassens orchestrates complicated puns and wordplay in ways that make sense only to persons with sufficient knowledge of the conventional language and expressions to know the difference. French musician and translator Pierre de Gaillande has tackled the translation and performance of Brassens songs in English on three albums titled “Bad Reputation.” Kudos to blogger David Yendley for his extensive translations and notes of Brassens that are available online, and to Project Brassens and Analyse Brassens. He is a well-studied artist.
The mention of Brassens’ name often invites comparisons with Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan (pre-Newport). Such comparisons rest on apparent similarities but generally leave differences less explored. The similarities include their status as singer-songwriters who write, compose and perform their own material, employ acoustic guitar with its intimacy of audience connection, solo performances, and frequent lyrical concerns with issues of politics and society.
Brassens, however, was distinctly French in culture, experience and language. To understand his music, one must understand Brassens himself as well as the context of French culture that elicited his songs. Given his restricted living circumstances at the Impasse Florimont in Montparnasse, the scope of his experience was limited and he drew subject matter for songs primarily from his personal experiences and observations. Brassens was a rebellious, libertarian renegade, and it was the specific context of rigid socio-cultural conventions that not only brought his thumb to his nose but fostered his unconventionally raunchy verbiage.
Satire, wit, humor and “argot” (slang) arising from the granularity of French culture are all difficult to appreciate through the lens of another culture. To paraphrase Tolstoy, each country is unhappy in its own way. Dominant threads in French culture are hierarchy, top-down authority relations, and strict social norms of behavior. Brassens lampooned the self-righteousness and hypocrisy that he saw in conservative French society. Many of his songs are critical and satirical about religion, bourgeois values, marriage, military, police, social mores and even language. As he wrote in “La Non-Demande en Mariage:”
|
J’ai l’honneur de
Ne pas te demander ta main, Ne gravons pas Nos noms au bas D’un parchemin. |
I have the honor of
Not asking your hand, Let us not engrave Our names at the bottom Of a parchment. |
His refrain in “La Mauvaise Réputation” was:
|
Non les brav’s gens n’aiment pas que
L’on suive une autre route q’eux. |
No the good folk don’t like that
You follow another road than them. |
And in “Mourir pour les idées:”
|
Mourons pour les idées, d’accord,
Mais de mort lente, D’accord, mais de mort lente. |
Let us die for ideas, okay,
But let death come slow Okay, but let death come slow |
In “Chanson pour l’auvergnat” he offered this description how the well-to-do (“Les croquantes et les croquants”) treated him:
|
Les croquantes et les croquants
Tous les gens bien intentionnés… M’avaient fermés la porte au nez… S’amusaient à me voir jeuner… Riaient de me voir rammené… |
The well-off people
All the well-intentioned folk… Closed the door in my face… Amused themselves to see me go without… Laughed to see me taken away… |
NB: Brassens’ use of the word “croquant” is special. Historically, it referred to peasants that revolted against their poverty. Subsequently, it has taken on a pejorative sense of conservative, well-off "petit bourgeoisie." It is clearly derogatory. Tom Thomson translated it as “the rich bastards.”
BACKGROUND
Brassens had a close family that included an anti-clerical stonemason father (Jean-Louis), a strictly catholic Italian mother (Elvira Dagrossa), a half-sister and a grandfather. His mother ("militante de la chanson") encouraged an early love for music, and his teacher at school Alphonse Bonnafé infused him with poetry (especially Symbolist poets Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Valéry, Mallarmé) and in 1964 published an early biography of Georges. The family lived together in Sète, a small seaside town in southern France where Georges had close friends ("copains").
Nevertheless, about the time he turned 18, young Georges fell into petty crime and thievery with some of those friends. Some went to prison, Georges was expelled from school and his family endured humiliation within the community. Fleeing the “bad reputation” that he later immortalized in a song, he moved to Paris in February 1940. In May the Germans bombed the Renault factory where he was working.
During the subsequent German occupation from June 1940 until March 1943, Georges relied on the hospitality of his mother’s sister Aunt Antoinette Dagrossa who lived at 173 rue d’Alésia in Paris 14. She had abandoned an unhappy marriage and moved to Paris to find her own way. While living with Antoinette, Georges wrote and read poetry, played the piano, and struck up a relationship with Antoinette’s seamstress Jeanne Planche (née LeBonniec) (1891-1968). Jeanne was 30 years his senior but their liaison lasted some 23 years. Like many young women (and men) from Brittany following the opening of the Paris-Brest train line in the last century, Jeanne had emigrated to Paris and settled where she arrived, close to the many crêperies near the Montparnasse train station.
The Germans conscripted Georges from March 1943 to March 1944 to work at a BMW factory in Basdorf Germany. When he got a 10-day leave to visit France in March 1944, he deserted instead and went into hiding in Paris with Jeanne Planche and her husband, Marcel, and their menagerie of cats, dogs, ducks, chickens and more. They lived in a primitive dwelling without electricity, gas or running water at Impasse Florimont in the Plaisance district of Montparnasse. Despite the age discrepancy between Georges and Jeanne and Marcel’s presence in the house until he died in 1965, Georges and Jeanne carried on a passionate love affair. Even after the Liberation in August 1944, Brassens remained chez Jeanne et Marcel until 1966. He celebrated their hospitality in two songs, L’Auvergnat (1954) and Jeanne (1962).
Brassens had a close family that included an anti-clerical stonemason father (Jean-Louis), a strictly catholic Italian mother (Elvira Dagrossa), a half-sister and a grandfather. His mother ("militante de la chanson") encouraged an early love for music, and his teacher at school Alphonse Bonnafé infused him with poetry (especially Symbolist poets Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Valéry, Mallarmé) and in 1964 published an early biography of Georges. The family lived together in Sète, a small seaside town in southern France where Georges had close friends ("copains").
Nevertheless, about the time he turned 18, young Georges fell into petty crime and thievery with some of those friends. Some went to prison, Georges was expelled from school and his family endured humiliation within the community. Fleeing the “bad reputation” that he later immortalized in a song, he moved to Paris in February 1940. In May the Germans bombed the Renault factory where he was working.
During the subsequent German occupation from June 1940 until March 1943, Georges relied on the hospitality of his mother’s sister Aunt Antoinette Dagrossa who lived at 173 rue d’Alésia in Paris 14. She had abandoned an unhappy marriage and moved to Paris to find her own way. While living with Antoinette, Georges wrote and read poetry, played the piano, and struck up a relationship with Antoinette’s seamstress Jeanne Planche (née LeBonniec) (1891-1968). Jeanne was 30 years his senior but their liaison lasted some 23 years. Like many young women (and men) from Brittany following the opening of the Paris-Brest train line in the last century, Jeanne had emigrated to Paris and settled where she arrived, close to the many crêperies near the Montparnasse train station.
The Germans conscripted Georges from March 1943 to March 1944 to work at a BMW factory in Basdorf Germany. When he got a 10-day leave to visit France in March 1944, he deserted instead and went into hiding in Paris with Jeanne Planche and her husband, Marcel, and their menagerie of cats, dogs, ducks, chickens and more. They lived in a primitive dwelling without electricity, gas or running water at Impasse Florimont in the Plaisance district of Montparnasse. Despite the age discrepancy between Georges and Jeanne and Marcel’s presence in the house until he died in 1965, Georges and Jeanne carried on a passionate love affair. Even after the Liberation in August 1944, Brassens remained chez Jeanne et Marcel until 1966. He celebrated their hospitality in two songs, L’Auvergnat (1954) and Jeanne (1962).
Impasse Florimont Jeanne Planche Freshening Up at Florimont
Joha Heiman (Puppchen) & Georges
In 1947, Brassens met Joha Heiman, an Estonian girl from Talinn whom he nicknamed “Puppchen” (“Little Doll”). Little is known about Puppchen, whom he met at the Plaisance metro station in Montparnasse. It is nice to think that it was raining and that he offered her his umbrella, leading to his song “La Parapluie.” What is known is that she was of German-Jewish heritage (hence her nickname), born in 1911 and raised in Talinn, Estonia. She migrated to Paris in 1930, married in 1935, had a son, divorced in 1954. and died in 1999. She was buried next to Brassens in his home town cemetery in Sète. Brassens memorialized her and her nickname in his song “Je me suis fait tout petit (devant une poupée)" (“I Humbled Myself (Before a Doll)”). They never married and one must credit Brassens for living life according to his beliefs. Those included viewing marriage as an institution that killed love, articulated in the song “La Non-Demande en marriage.”
Several things can be noted about Georges and the opposite sex: women are involved in about half of his songs; he preferred mature (and married) women (Jeanne was 30 years older; Puppchen was 10 years older); he eschewed marriage and claimed it killed love; he didn’t want children (or, “poulpiquets” as he called them); he preferred living alone. Nevertheless, Puppchen became his muse until his final days and after her death in 1999 she was buried next to him in Sète although they never married or lived together. She inspired Brassens’ songs that include: Je me suis fait tout petit, Saturne, J’ai rendez-vous avec vous, Rien à jeter, La non-demande de marriage.
Until his career took off in 1952, Brassens had little income and read ravenously and wrote poetry while living with Jeanne and Marcel who stretched their two ration coupons to feed three. Once his fortune turned, Georges remodeled their apartment. In 1966 at the age of 75 and after Marcel died the year before, Jeanne remarried a much younger man, but she passed away two years later. Brassens shortly left the Impasse Florimont and eventually moved to the adjoining 15th arrondissement.
Many of the episodes in this short history carried personal experiences that worked their way into Brassens’ outlook on life and into his songs. They were grist for the mill that produced his appreciation for camaraderie, unrequited generosity, mistrust for authority, disrespect for community norms and morals, for social institutions like marriage, and much else.
Guitar Biting Relieves
Stage Fright
BREAKTHROUGH
During 1951, in his 30th year, Brassens sought unsuccessfully to break into the music scene and hovered on the brink of depression. At first, Brassens was only interested in selling his songs and not performing them. As he said: "Je chante pour les oreilles, pas pour les yeux."
Singer Jacques Grello, who gave Brassens his first guitar, believed in him and dragged him through what one can only call the “chemin saint de la chanson,” a painful series of auditions at performance venues like “L’Ecluse,” “Lapiin Agile,” Villa d’Este,” “Milord L’Arsouille” and others. In some cases, Georges would do two sessions each night, the last one starting at midnight. Unfortunately, Brassens proved timid, uncomfortable, squirmish and sweated heavily in performances that were further encumbered by an unsavory physical appearance. Brassens called it “mon calvaire sur la butte” (“my calvary on the hill”). Even in winter, he rode home from Montmartre to Montparnasse on his bicycle at 3 a.m. with his guitar on his back--until luck and friends smiled on him.
During 1951, in his 30th year, Brassens sought unsuccessfully to break into the music scene and hovered on the brink of depression. At first, Brassens was only interested in selling his songs and not performing them. As he said: "Je chante pour les oreilles, pas pour les yeux."
Singer Jacques Grello, who gave Brassens his first guitar, believed in him and dragged him through what one can only call the “chemin saint de la chanson,” a painful series of auditions at performance venues like “L’Ecluse,” “Lapiin Agile,” Villa d’Este,” “Milord L’Arsouille” and others. In some cases, Georges would do two sessions each night, the last one starting at midnight. Unfortunately, Brassens proved timid, uncomfortable, squirmish and sweated heavily in performances that were further encumbered by an unsavory physical appearance. Brassens called it “mon calvaire sur la butte” (“my calvary on the hill”). Even in winter, he rode home from Montmartre to Montparnasse on his bicycle at 3 a.m. with his guitar on his back--until luck and friends smiled on him.
In January 1952, three long-time friends working at the Paris-Match magazine drove Georges in their Renault 4 to meet Henriette Ragon, otherwise known as Patachou. Henriette and her husband Jean Billon had opened a cabaret-restaurant near the Place du Tertre in Montmartre that had previously been a patisserie called Patachou, a diminutive expression for pâte-à-choux or “cream puff.” Henriette worked the bar and sang for customers, and the nickname Patachou rubbed off on her. She also had a colorful habit of snipping the neckties of customers who refused to join the singing and stapled them to the ceiling like banners. That night in 1952, she sang Brassens’ songs and called him on stage to sing which he managed to do despite near paralysis by stage fright. She went on to sing his songs in venues and on tour, promoted his career as a singer-songwriter, and became a star herself.
Chez Patachou, As It Was Henriette Ragon, "dite" Patachou
Like many other "chansonniers," Brassens’ career took off when he joined Jacques Canetti’s “Bande des Baudets” theater group in September 1952 at the foot of Montmartre. This group included Jacques Brel, Charles Aznavour, Jeanne Moreau, Boris Vian, Marcel Mouloudji, Serge Gainsbourg, and others. Many years later, Jacques Canetti’s daughter Françoise published a biography of her father titled: Brassens l’Appelait Socrate (“Brassens Called him Socrates”). Brassens had a habit of tagging friends with nicknames. His tag for Canetti was a veiled recognition of Canetti’s role as “talent midwife” of "chanson" who led not by directing but by guiding through questions (“maieutics”) the careers of his mentees.
This was the ultimate “chanson” training camp where Brassens met Pierre Nicolas, who thereafter served 30 years as his bassist. The lean years were over for GB. He had many good years thereafter, and died in 1981. Brassens’ career spanned 25 years until his final performance in 1977 at the Bobino in Montparnasse. During that time, he wrote about 250 songs and recorded 14 albums. Brassens was a bona fide poet in the eyes of many, and in 1967 the Académie Française awarded him the Grand Prix de Poésie. Perhaps the apotheosis of his singing career occurred in 1969 when he joined Jacques Brel and Léo Ferré in their famous "chanson panthéon" interview as shown below.
Like many other "chansonniers," Brassens’ career took off when he joined Jacques Canetti’s “Bande des Baudets” theater group in September 1952 at the foot of Montmartre. This group included Jacques Brel, Charles Aznavour, Jeanne Moreau, Boris Vian, Marcel Mouloudji, Serge Gainsbourg, and others. Many years later, Jacques Canetti’s daughter Françoise published a biography of her father titled: Brassens l’Appelait Socrate (“Brassens Called him Socrates”). Brassens had a habit of tagging friends with nicknames. His tag for Canetti was a veiled recognition of Canetti’s role as “talent midwife” of "chanson" who led not by directing but by guiding through questions (“maieutics”) the careers of his mentees.
This was the ultimate “chanson” training camp where Brassens met Pierre Nicolas, who thereafter served 30 years as his bassist. The lean years were over for GB. He had many good years thereafter, and died in 1981. Brassens’ career spanned 25 years until his final performance in 1977 at the Bobino in Montparnasse. During that time, he wrote about 250 songs and recorded 14 albums. Brassens was a bona fide poet in the eyes of many, and in 1967 the Académie Française awarded him the Grand Prix de Poésie. Perhaps the apotheosis of his singing career occurred in 1969 when he joined Jacques Brel and Léo Ferré in their famous "chanson panthéon" interview as shown below.
J. Brel, L. Ferré, G. Brassens
With that brief introduction to Brassens’ history, we turn to his songs.
GEORGES BRASSENS SONGS:
Les Copains d'Abord (Pals First)
Jeanne (Jeanne)