Les séparés (n’écris pas) (Apart), 1997 (Album: Julien)
Julien Clerc composed the music and released the song “Les séparés” in 1997 on the album Julien. The lyrics are drawn from a 19th century poem written by Marceline Desbordes-Valmore (1786-1859). That poem is often referred to as “N’écris pas” after a line that appears 8 times, at the beginning and end of each stanza. Marceline was a prolific romantic poet and novelist who acquired a personal history resembling a Victor Hugo novel. The poem was published posthumously in 1860 in Poésies inédites. The poem’s title “Les séparés” is typically translated in English as “Apart.” In 1998, Clerc’s song “Les séparés” won the Rolf Marbot (Albrecht Marcus) prize for Song of the Year from the French Société des Auteurs Compositeurs et Éditeurs de Musique (SACEM).
Marceline Desbordes-Valmor by
Martin Dowling
Marceline Desbordes was born in the town of Douai in northern French Flanders. The French Revolution (1789-99) ruined her father’s business (painter and cabaret owner) and in 1801 she and her mother ventured to Guadaloupe seeking help from a distant relative. Her mother died there of yellow fever and at the age of sixteen Marceline made her way back to France where she took to the stage as actress and singer. One suspects that Julien Clerc’s own Guadaloupian ancestry (by his birth mother) might have attracted him to Marceline’s story.
Marceline fell into amorous relationships with Louis Lacour, Eugene Debonne and Henri de Latouche and produced several children, all of whom died but one. In 1817, she married an actor Prosper Lanchantin (aka Valmore) and in 1819, she published her first volume of poetry (Élégies, Marie, et Romances). She soon retired from the stage and devoted herself to writing. Despite being an autodidact, her earlier music experience equipped her to make innovative departures from the traditional (12-syllable Alexandrine) syllabic and rhyming structure of poetry in common use. Known informally as “Notre Dame des Pleurs” from her moving accounts of life’s trials, she died in 1859. She was the only woman, and an obscure one at that, included in Paul Verlaine’s famous 1884 anthology Les Poètes maudits ("The Accursed Poets") that featured a handful of Symbolist poets who were social outcasts. Nevertheless, the 1994 edition of the Dictionnaire universel des littératures characterized her public profile as: “Connue, méconnue et inconnue” (“Known, Misunderstood, and Unknown”).
Over the years, the musicality of Marceline’s verses became a magnet for more than 130 composers who set her verses to music. These included Julien Clerc's song under consideration, as well as a more recent 2016 album of 12 poems composed and sung by Pascal Obispo (“Billet de femme”) and performed by a 50-person symphonic orchestra.
Over the years, the musicality of Marceline’s verses became a magnet for more than 130 composers who set her verses to music. These included Julien Clerc's song under consideration, as well as a more recent 2016 album of 12 poems composed and sung by Pascal Obispo (“Billet de femme”) and performed by a 50-person symphonic orchestra.
The two parties to the poem and song are, for reasons undisclosed, separated lovers. She writes to him in the present imperative (“n’écris pas!”) with negative instructions that he must write no more. She describes the anguish of their separation and the sadness that his letters bring. She declares that they must suffer through absence and die alone. Unmistakable words of suffering appear throughout (“Je te crains; j’ai peur,” “triste,” “m’éteindre,” “nuit sans flambeau,” “frapper au tombeau”). Her use of the past imperfect (“l’imparfait”) verb tense (instead of the “passé composé”) is a linguistic signal of the ongoing and continued nature of her feelings.
The original poem had only 4 stanzas, while Clerc's song includes a fifth stanza that repeats the important Verse 2 where she acknowledges her unceasing love (“Ne demande qu'à Dieu . . . qu’à toi, si je t’aimais!”) and their apparent fate to die alone (“N'apprenons qu'à mourir à nous-mêmes”). Clerc also drops Marceline’s repetition of “n’écris pas!” with which she ends each verse in the poem (perhaps lest it be obvious that “the lady doth protest too much”). In her version, every stanza both began and ended with that same phrase. In rhetoric, such repetition of a phrase at the beginning of a stanza is an "anaphora" and at the end it is an "epiphora" or "epistrophe."
In both the poem and song, each stanza has 4 lines with a rhyme sequence of ABAB. The overall song structure is Verse-Verse-Verse-Verse-Verse, with the oft-repeated “n’écris pas” serving as a recurrent refrain that opens every stanza, and 2 instrumental interludes. The melody is relatively complex and the simple keyboard accompaniment highlights the salience of words and voice.
The accompanying video is a brilliant segué to Marceline’s poem and a companion piece that brings the matter to its logical and human conclusion. Most music videos merely enact a song, and there are versions of this song online that do exactly that, but this one completes a story begun many years before. In it, Julien Clerc appears to have received Marceline’s letter. He has read between the lines, drawn appropriate conclusions and mustered manly resolution. To wit, Marceline’s love burns bright, she is miserable (and so is he), and written words are not a solution. Like a happy warrior, he sets off across sea and land to find her on the craggy coast. On his way, he sings her words as though a ritual exorcism of their travails. Almost with etherial coordination, he finds her waiting beside her cottage, bag packed and ready to join him. In the end, Marceline’s poem, Julien Clerc's melody, and a video produced 200 years after the fact come together in a contemporary artistic affirmation of the effectiveness of reverse psychology.
Sidebar: It is strongly recommended that Julien Clerc’s “Les séparés” be experienced together with Isabelle Boulay’s song “Parle-moi.” Both are written from the perspective of women and both deal with communication in the terminal stages of a relationship, but their focus and outcomes are quite different. In “Parle-moi,” Isabelle begs her partner to talk, but ultimately words are no solution to their problem. Marceline, on the other hand, implores her partner not to write despite her smoldering love, leaving the appropriate remedy implicit but dangling. Luckily, her partner knows her well, shares her sentiments and summons the courage of his convictions. Perhaps coincidentally, Clerc and Boulay came together in 2005 at the Olympia music hall in Paris to perform a duet of “Les séparés.” They should have paired it with “Parle-moi.” Both songs did appear together that same year on Boulay’s live album “Du temps pour toi.”
The original poem had only 4 stanzas, while Clerc's song includes a fifth stanza that repeats the important Verse 2 where she acknowledges her unceasing love (“Ne demande qu'à Dieu . . . qu’à toi, si je t’aimais!”) and their apparent fate to die alone (“N'apprenons qu'à mourir à nous-mêmes”). Clerc also drops Marceline’s repetition of “n’écris pas!” with which she ends each verse in the poem (perhaps lest it be obvious that “the lady doth protest too much”). In her version, every stanza both began and ended with that same phrase. In rhetoric, such repetition of a phrase at the beginning of a stanza is an "anaphora" and at the end it is an "epiphora" or "epistrophe."
In both the poem and song, each stanza has 4 lines with a rhyme sequence of ABAB. The overall song structure is Verse-Verse-Verse-Verse-Verse, with the oft-repeated “n’écris pas” serving as a recurrent refrain that opens every stanza, and 2 instrumental interludes. The melody is relatively complex and the simple keyboard accompaniment highlights the salience of words and voice.
The accompanying video is a brilliant segué to Marceline’s poem and a companion piece that brings the matter to its logical and human conclusion. Most music videos merely enact a song, and there are versions of this song online that do exactly that, but this one completes a story begun many years before. In it, Julien Clerc appears to have received Marceline’s letter. He has read between the lines, drawn appropriate conclusions and mustered manly resolution. To wit, Marceline’s love burns bright, she is miserable (and so is he), and written words are not a solution. Like a happy warrior, he sets off across sea and land to find her on the craggy coast. On his way, he sings her words as though a ritual exorcism of their travails. Almost with etherial coordination, he finds her waiting beside her cottage, bag packed and ready to join him. In the end, Marceline’s poem, Julien Clerc's melody, and a video produced 200 years after the fact come together in a contemporary artistic affirmation of the effectiveness of reverse psychology.
Sidebar: It is strongly recommended that Julien Clerc’s “Les séparés” be experienced together with Isabelle Boulay’s song “Parle-moi.” Both are written from the perspective of women and both deal with communication in the terminal stages of a relationship, but their focus and outcomes are quite different. In “Parle-moi,” Isabelle begs her partner to talk, but ultimately words are no solution to their problem. Marceline, on the other hand, implores her partner not to write despite her smoldering love, leaving the appropriate remedy implicit but dangling. Luckily, her partner knows her well, shares her sentiments and summons the courage of his convictions. Perhaps coincidentally, Clerc and Boulay came together in 2005 at the Olympia music hall in Paris to perform a duet of “Les séparés.” They should have paired it with “Parle-moi.” Both songs did appear together that same year on Boulay’s live album “Du temps pour toi.”
|
Verse
N’écris pas. Je suis triste, et je voudrais m‘éteindre Les beaux étés sans toi, c’est la nuit sans flambeau. J‘ai refermé mes bras qui ne peuvent t’atteindre, Et frapper à mon coeur, c’est frapper au tombeau. Verse N’écris pas. N’apprenons qu'à mourir à nous-mêmes. Ne demande qu'à Dieu . . . qu’à toi, si je t’aimais! Au fond de ton silence écouter que tu m’aimes, C’est entendre le ciel sans y monter jamais. Instrumental Verse N’écris pas. Je te crains; j’ai peur de ma mémoire; Elle a gardé ta voix qui m’appelle souvent. Ne montre pas l’eau vive à qui ne peut la boire. Une chère écriture est un portrait vivant. Verse N’écris pas ces doux mots que je n’ose plus lire: Il semble que ta voix les répand sur mon coeur; Que je les vois brûler à travers ton sourire; Il semble qu’un baiser les empreint sur mon coeur. Instrumental Verse N'écris pas! N'apprenons qu'à mourir à nous-mêmes Ne demande qu'à Dieu, qu'à toi si je t'aimais! Au fond de ton silence, écouter que tu m'aimes C'est entendre le ciel sans y monter jamais N’écris pas! |
Verse
Don’t write. I am sad, and I wish to die. Beautiful summers without you, it’s night without a torch I have closed my arms again which can’t reach you And knocking on my heart, is knocking on a tomb. Verse Do not write. Let us learn only to die by ourselves. Ask only God…only yourself, if I loved you! In the depth of your silence, to hear that you love me Is to hear from heaven without ever going there. Instrumental Verse Do not write. I fear you; I fear my memory, That has kept your voice that calls me often. Do not show running water to one who can’t drink it, A cherished handwriting is a living portrait. Verse Don’t write those sweet words I dare no longer read, It seems that your voice spreads them on my heart, That I see them burn across your smile; It seems that a kiss stamps them on my heart. Instrumental Verse Do not write. Let us learn only to die by ourselves. Ask only God…only yourself if I loved you! In the depth of your silence, to hear that you love me, Is to hear from heaven without ever going there. Do not write! |
NB
1) N’apprenons qu'à mourir à nous-mêmes:”Ne…que” is a “construct” with words placed between the “ne” and the “que.” It literally means “not…that” but translates as “only” and is a more formal and literary alternative to “seulement.” The placement of the “que” affects the meaning since it goes before the word it modifies, in this case mourir.
1) N’apprenons qu'à mourir à nous-mêmes:”Ne…que” is a “construct” with words placed between the “ne” and the “que.” It literally means “not…that” but translates as “only” and is a more formal and literary alternative to “seulement.” The placement of the “que” affects the meaning since it goes before the word it modifies, in this case mourir.
Return to Clerc Profile