Plaisir d’Amour (Pleasure of Love)
"Plaisir d'Amour" (Pleasure of love) is a short classical French love song about the pain of love, with its transitory pleasures but lifetime grief that it brings. Jean-Paul-Égide Martini (born in Bavaria 1741-1816), a court musician in Paris, wrote the music in 1784 and adopted the lyrics from a poem by Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian (1755-1794). By some cosmic coincidence, this composer of one of the world's greatest love songs died on Valentine's Day in 1816.
The poem appeared in de Florian’s story Célestine (Nouvelle Espagnol) that was part of a book published in 1784, “Les Six Nouvelles de M. Florian.” The song was first called “Romance du Chevrier” (“The Goatherd’s Romance”). In de Florian’s tale, the maiden Célestine sat down by a grotto to rest and heard a flute and song in a soft but rough voice. Upon inspection, that turned out to be a young goatherd seated by a willow tree and singing his grief at lost love. The overall story is a sad one where love relationships suffer from family complications.
The song was eventually re-titled using its first words "Plaisir d'amour" a century later sometime between 1890 and 1908. The first known recordings using that title appeared in 1902. That new name, however appealing, was something of a misnomer. The original song was written from the perspective of a man whose lover “Sylvie” was lost to him, leaving him to suffer the remorse of lost love. The French lyrics emphasized the net return from romantic love as a surplus of pain over joy in its classic line: “The pleasure of love lasts only a moment, the grief of love lasts a lifetime.”
Extract from de Florian's Célestine, 1784
In its original form, there are two 6-line stanzas. The first stanza is prefaced by the famous 2-line refrain: “Plaisir d’amour ne dure qu’un moment….Chagrin d’amour dure toute la vie.” Each stanza ends with the same two-line lament. The tone shifts audibly with the second stanza recounting the words of the faithless Sylvie. Each stanza follows ABBAAB rhyming. The melody is slow and lugubrious, with clearly articulated lyrics and modulated tones.
Over the years, many “covers” of the song were made by both female and male interpreters in French and other languages with its original melody and lyrics. That melody has been borrowed in orchestral (Berlioz) and operatic (Tchaikovsky) arrangements as well. The song was featured in William Wyler’s classic 1949 film “The Heiress,” that was based on Henry James' 1880 novel, “Washington Square.” The Oscar-winning score by Aaron Copland used the tune as a theme song throughout the film and Montgomery Cliff sang it to Olivia de Haviland. Its theme signifies his role as a fortune-hunter and serves as a melodic link between the two characters. Subsequent post-production controversy in tinkering with title credits and the score led Copland to definitively abandon composing for film.
Over the years, many “covers” of the song were made by both female and male interpreters in French and other languages with its original melody and lyrics. That melody has been borrowed in orchestral (Berlioz) and operatic (Tchaikovsky) arrangements as well. The song was featured in William Wyler’s classic 1949 film “The Heiress,” that was based on Henry James' 1880 novel, “Washington Square.” The Oscar-winning score by Aaron Copland used the tune as a theme song throughout the film and Montgomery Cliff sang it to Olivia de Haviland. Its theme signifies his role as a fortune-hunter and serves as a melodic link between the two characters. Subsequent post-production controversy in tinkering with title credits and the score led Copland to definitively abandon composing for film.
As a traditional folksong hundreds of years old, the lyrics appear in several versions. A short search reveals different lyrics by Joan Baez, Charlotte Church, Vicki Brown, Marianne Faithfull, and others. As mentioned above, the original text from 1784 is written in the first person by a man (the goatherd) who left everything for "the ungrateful" Sylvie, who perfidiously professed undying love but dumped him instead for another man. Note that subsequent versions sanitize and drop the "ungrateful" description of Sylvie. When the song is sung by a woman addressing a man, a slight variation in the lyrics to the second person (familiar) occurs as in Mouskouri’s song below. For our purposes, Mouskouri's version appeals because the video has French subtitles, she has a beautiful voice, and she articulates clearly.
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Plaisir d’amour ne dure qu’un moment Chagrin d’amour dure toute la vie Tu m’as quitté pour la belle Sylvie Elle te quitte pour un autre amant Plaisir d’amour ne dure qu’un moment Chagrin d’amour dure toute la vie "Tant que cette eau coulera doucement Vers ce ruisseau qui borde la prairie Je t’aimerai," te répétait Sylvie L’eau coule encore, elle a changé pourtant Plaisir d’amour ne dure qu’un moment Chagrin d’amour dure toute la vie |
The pleasure of love lasts only a moment The pain of love lasts a lifetime You left me for the lovely Sylvie She is leaving you for another love The pleasure of love lasts only a moment The pain of love lasts a lifetime "As long as this water flows gently To the brook that borders the meadow I will love you,” Sylvie repeated The water still runs, but she changed The pleasure of love lasts only a moment The pain of love lasts a lifetime |
NB:
- "Ne...que" means "only" and wraps around the verb.
- “Chagrin d’amour” is commonly translated as “heartache” but I choose “pain of love” to stick more closely to the literal translation and because it echoes the construction of “Plaisir d’amour.” Similarly, “Plaisir d’amour” often appears as “joy” of love but I choose “pleasure.”
Adaptation: Can't Help Falling in Love
The adaptation of “Plaisir d’amour” to “Can’t Help Falling in Love” occurred in 1961 during the film production of “Blue Hawaii” starring Elvis Presley. The film’s soundtrack spent 20 weeks as #1 on the Billboard Pop Album chart. Songwriters Hugo Peretti, Luigi Creatore, and George David Weiss borrowed “Plaisir d’amour’s” gentle, melody line, reshaping it to suit Elvis’s vocal style and the film's narrative.
Peretti and Creatore were cousins who worked together as “Hugo and Luigi,” record producers and songwriters in New York’s famous Brill Building that was an epicenter of the American music industry. Weiss (1921-2010) was a prominent songwriter and arranger with credits for “What a Wonderful World,” “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” “Lullaby of Birdland,” and many others. Weiss was President of the Songwriter’s Guild of America and an inductee of the Songwriters’ Hall of Fame. Observers have noted an eerie similarity between Weiss's two songs "Can't Help Falling in Love" (1961) and "What a Wonderful World" that he wrote for Louis Armstrong (1968).
Peretti and Creatore were cousins who worked together as “Hugo and Luigi,” record producers and songwriters in New York’s famous Brill Building that was an epicenter of the American music industry. Weiss (1921-2010) was a prominent songwriter and arranger with credits for “What a Wonderful World,” “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” “Lullaby of Birdland,” and many others. Weiss was President of the Songwriter’s Guild of America and an inductee of the Songwriters’ Hall of Fame. Observers have noted an eerie similarity between Weiss's two songs "Can't Help Falling in Love" (1961) and "What a Wonderful World" that he wrote for Louis Armstrong (1968).
In contrast with “Plaisir d’amour’s” portrayal of the grief and remorse of lost love, “Can’t help falling in love” is written from the perspective of a man in the ecstatic throes of falling helplessly in love. In this sense, it reflects the recurrent contrast in "adaptations" between the sometimes gritty and contemplative messages in French "chanson" with the upbeat optimism of the American cultural environment. It is curious that "Plaisir d'amour" is often identified as a "love song" while its actual lyrics are at best bittersweet.
The two songs do have something in common, however. A "water feature" provides a shared metaphor--flowing water as a symbol of life, purity, flowing time, permanence and surety. Sylvie promised that her love would last as long as water flowed into the brook by the prairie's edge. Regrettably, she changed her mind and heart but the water kept flowing. For his part, Elvis’s lines evoke the unstoppable nature of love: “Like a river flows surely to the sea, Darling so it goes, Some things are meant to be.” Side-by-side comparison of lyrics for "Plaisir d'amour," my translation and "Can't Help Falling in Love" can be seen here.
The two songs do have something in common, however. A "water feature" provides a shared metaphor--flowing water as a symbol of life, purity, flowing time, permanence and surety. Sylvie promised that her love would last as long as water flowed into the brook by the prairie's edge. Regrettably, she changed her mind and heart but the water kept flowing. For his part, Elvis’s lines evoke the unstoppable nature of love: “Like a river flows surely to the sea, Darling so it goes, Some things are meant to be.” Side-by-side comparison of lyrics for "Plaisir d'amour," my translation and "Can't Help Falling in Love" can be seen here.
Elvis's performance was mellow, without verbal acrobatics or heavy instrumentation. The tone was nicely attuned to the sincerity and commitment demanded by the lyrics and the flow of the film’s narrative. Curiously, in the movie Elvis presents a music box to his girl friend's grandmother and joins in singing the song that plays when she opens it, which happens to be "Can't Help Falling in Love." The song and the movie together mark a salient shift in Presley's career profile following his 2 years of active-duty military service from rock-and-roll to pop music and acting in movies.
The song became a pillar of Elvis’s late-1960s and early 1970s concerts, where he performed the song as the set finale. It was the last song that Elvis performed live in his final concert at Market Square Arena in Indianapolis on June 26, 1977. He died 7 weeks later at 42 years of age.
In 1962, the song topped British charts and peaked in the US at number two on the Billboard Top 100. In 2012, Rolling Stone Magazine ranked “Can’t Help Falling in Love” at #403 as one of the 500 greatest songs of all time. As of 4 March 2024, it was the most streamed Elvis Presley song on Spotify at 836,193,249 and was on course to be the first Presley song to reach one billion streams.
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