Gilbert Bécaud: Et maintenant

Et maintenant

This 1961 song’s title “Et maintenant” translates literally as “And Now,” and its following line “que vais-je faire” (“what am I going to do”) states a question. The song marches to the steady cadence of a Ravel-like repeating “ostinato” drum rhythm with lyrics and music ascending in crescendo to a climax in the final line: “Je n’ai vraiment…plus rien.”

This is not a romantic ballad. It is a song of desperation, framed as a long rhetorical question directed not so much at a recently departed lover as to the world in general. The percussive beat behind the melody resembles a heart racing to derangement. One observer commented that the lyric reads like a suicide note. As such, it might well have been a sequel to Jacques Brel’s 1959 “Ne me quitte pas.”

The famous origin of this song was a serendipitous encounter between Gilbert Bécaud and Elga Andersen (née Helga Hyman, 1935-1994), a German actress and singer on a flight between Paris and Nice. Andersen was going to visit her fiancé. On the return flight the next day, a distraught Andersen recounted to Bécaud that her relationship was over. Bécaud invited her to lunch at his home, where she leaned on the piano and said: “Et maintenant, que vais-je faire?” Within a day, Bécaud and his lyricist Pierre Delanoë had their title and completed the song based on that critical line. The two men were close collaborators. Delanoë was a giant among French lyricists who wrote more than 4 thousand songs, 300 of them with Bécaud and others sung by Edith Piaf, Charles Aznavour, Marlene Dietrich, Johnny Hallyday, Françoise Hardy, Nana Mouskouri, and Claude François. Bécaud’s release of the song in 1961 topped the French charts.

[As a sidebar, Elga Andersen landed on her feet. Andersen had a small role in Otto Preminger’s 1958 film “Bonjour Tristesse” and a starring role in 1971 with Steve McQueen in “Le Mans.” In 1978, she married American Peter Gimble, scion of the department store empire. After Yale, Gimble became an investment banker for 10 years and then an explorer, filmmaker and underwater photojournalist. In 1981, the Gimbles endeavored to recover the vault of the Italian luxury liner SS Andrea Doria that sank after collision in 1956 near Nantucket. They ended that project but after both Gimbles were deceased, their ashes were interred in 1995 in the Andrea Doria].

In “Et maintenant,” Bécaud is distressed at the departure of his lover, which drains his life of meaning. His days are empty, other people bore him, even Paris is a drag. He has nothing left. He becomes particularly heated when he hurls “je te haïrai” (“I will hate you”) at the end of verse 5. Bécaud’s rhyming scheme is highly sophisticated with end-line rhymes and internal rhymes both within and across lines. In the first stanza, for example, lines 1-4 all have identical first beat rhymes (maintenant, temps, gens, maintenant) as well as ABAB end-line rhymes (faire, vie, indiffèrent, partie). Also, note the internal rhymes throughout stanzas 4 and 6. Bécaud is a true craftsman at work, weaving an intricate design of rhyme that pleases both eyes and ears.

Bécaud’s performance below in Amsterdam (1964) is live and highly unusual for its intensity. It buttresses the comparison suggested above with Jacque Brel’s own performance of “Ne me quitte pas.”

Verse 1
Et maintenant, que vais-je faire
De tout ce temps que sera ma vie
De tous ces gens qui m'indiffèrent
Maintenant que tu es partie

Verse 2
Toutes ces nuits, pourquoi, pour qui
Et ce matin qui revient pour rien
Ce coeur qui bat, pour qui, pourquoi
Qui bat trop fort, trop fort

Verse 3
Et maintenant, que vais-je faire
Vers quel néant glissera ma vie
Tu m'as laissé la terre entière
Mais la terre sans toi c'est petit

Verse 4
Vous mes amis, soyez gentils
Vous savez bien que l'on n'y peut rien
Même Paris crève d'ennui
Toutes ses rues me tuent

Verse 5
Et maintenant, que vais-je faire
Je vais en rire pour ne plus pleurer
Je vais brûler des nuits entières
Au matin, je te haïrai

Verse 6
Et puis un soir, dans mon miroir
Je verrai bien la fin du chemin
Pas une fleur et pas de pleurs
Au moment de l'adieu

Outro
Je n'ai vraiment plus rien à faire
Je n'ai vraiment plus rien ...

Verse 1
And now, what am I going to do
With all this time that will be my life
With all the people who leave me cold
Now that you have gone

Verse 2
All the nights, why, for whom
And this morn that returns for nothing
This heart that beats, for whom, why
That beats too strong, too strong

Verse 3
And now what am I going to do
Toward what void will my life slip away
You left me the entire world
But the world without you is tiny

Verse 4
You, my friends, be kind
You know nothing can be done
Even Paris dies of boredom
All her streets kill me

Verse 5
And now what am I going to do
I will laugh to no longer cry
I will rage entire nights
In the morning, I will hate you

Verse 6
And then one evening, in my mirror
I will see the end of the road
Not a flower and no tears
At the time of farewell

Outro
I really have nothing more to do
I really have nothing more…

NB:
“Soyez” is the present imperative form of the French verb “être” (to be). The imperative is used to make commands. The imperative drops the subject pronoun, has only two tenses (past and present), only “nous,” “vous” and “tu” forms, and special rules for “avoir” and “être.

What Now My Love

American lyricist Carl Sigman (1909-2000) wrote the English language adaptation for “Et maintenant” in 1962 with a new title: “What Now My Love.” In 1957, he had also written the lyrics for Bécaud’s song “Le jour où la pluie viendra” (“The Day the Rains Came”). Sigman’s most famous song was “Where Do I Begin,” the theme song for the 1970 movie “Love Story” starring Ryan O’Neal and Ali McGraw, for which he wrote lyrics to accompany Francis Lai’s music. Another was “Ebb Tide,” a 1965 hit for The Righteous Brothers. Sigman became a prominent lyricist for Big Band hits by Glenn Miller and Guy Lombardo. His song catalogue exceeded 800 songs.

Sigman’s song is generally faithful to Bécaud’s meaning, but Sigman’s lyrics are a bit more understated. A comparison of Bécaud's lyrics, my translation and Sigman's adaptation is available here. Both versions express despair at the departure of their lover whom they address directly, with the French using the familiar pronoun “tu.” Sigman, however, expresses more disorientation and disappointment than anger. Much like Inspector Javert in Les Misérables, one almost expects Sigman’s character to leap off a bridge when he intones: “Here comes the stars, Tumbling around me, And there's the sky, Where the sea should be.” Sigman’s lines and stanzas are brief and simple with random rhymes. His first verse is ABCDCEFE; verse 2 is AABCDEDD; verse 3 is ABBCC.

Welsh singer Dame Shirley Bassey’s release of “What Now My Love” in 1962 reached #5 on UK charts and was followed by a massive number of subsequent English language “covers.” Two of the most famous were Judy Garland in 1966 and Elvis Presley’s live performance in January 1973 at the “Aloha from Hawaii” concert that was transmitted by satellite and seen by 1.5 billion people in 36 countries. Bécaud himself sang the English-language version in 1963.

In 1974, Bécaud’s song appeared in the climax of Claude Lelouche’s 1974 film “Toute Une Vie” that was released in the US under the name “And Now My Love.” Bécaud himself appears in the film as a French pop star and the film included other Bécaud songs that protagonists were obsessed with. Those other songs included: “Ah! Dites-moi pourquoi je l'Aime,” “L'Orange,” “Si,si,si, la Vie est Belle,” “Chante,” “Dimanche à Orly,” “Galilée.” The film entwines personal and historical events of a full century and several continents in narrating the lives of a woman and man starting three generations before. It received an Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay. Its musical score was by Francis Lai who earlier wrote music for “A Man and a Woman” (1965) and “Love Story” (1970). During filming, actors performed each scene twice (in English and French) to avoid dubbing or subtitles.

“What Now My Love” registered a long line of interpretations over the years and was adapted in many other languages as well. None of the English language interpretations equals the intensity or apparent anger of Bécaud’s version above, although Elvis comes close so we feature him here.

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