Le Square Carpeaux, Paris 18e
Le Baiser Modiano (The Modiano Kiss)
Patrick Modiano
Vincent Delerm released the song “Le baiser Modiano” (“The Modiano Kiss”) in 2004 on his second album, Kensington Square. Ten years later, Patrick Modiano (1945-) received the 2014 Nobel Prize in Literature. Was there a connection? Nobody knows, but unlikely. It’s the kind of event that reminds one of a Modiano novel with its surprising turns and rabbit holes. The award was a precious, if surprising, event for French national pride. It brought the total French number of Nobel Literature awards to 16, the worlds' highest, and placed Modiano in the rare company of Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre.
The title “Le baiser Modiano” memorializes a chance glimpse of Modiano on a rainy night next to the Square Carpeaux in Paris, prompting a celebratory kiss between Delerm and his companion. Delerm named that kiss, and the song, “Le baiser Modiano.” In Delerm’s telling, he and his friend over-indulged “mojitos” until midnight that evening, an unlikely occupation the night before the all-important French baccalauréat (“bac”) exam. They carried with them a folio copy of Modiano’s 1990 novel “Les voyages de noces” (“Honeymoon”), likely in preparation for the test the following day.
The song represents a tribute to Modiano not only because he appears in the title and the narrative. The song is a felicitous blend of music, literature and cinema references that encapsulates the spirit of Modiano’s work in many ways. Like a musical facsimile of Modiano’s books, the song’s melancholic tone and lyrics evoke the tenor of Modiano’s literary embodiment of “film noir.”
The song represents a tribute to Modiano not only because he appears in the title and the narrative. The song is a felicitous blend of music, literature and cinema references that encapsulates the spirit of Modiano’s work in many ways. Like a musical facsimile of Modiano’s books, the song’s melancholic tone and lyrics evoke the tenor of Modiano’s literary embodiment of “film noir.”
Paris 18 (Square Carpeaux upper left)
The song is framed as a recollection written in the first person, following the pattern of Modiano’s novels. Delerm also has a modianesque gift for detailing the specific locational and human landscape in which the song transpires. His song is populated with identifiers that Parisians can recognize. Like peeling an onion, they progressively converge on a specific location: “le soir,” “sous la pluie,” “sous les réverbères,” “près du metro,” “en face du tabac,” “devant les grilles du square Carpeaux.” Bingo! You have arrived at the “Square Carpeaux” in the shadow of Montmartre’s Sacre Coeur in the 18th arrondissement. It is named after the French sculptor Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux (1827-1875). After they married in 1970, Modiano and his new bride Dominique Zehrfuss lived nearby for some time. It is also the neighborhood where the namesake character in Modiano’s 1997 novel “Dora Bruder” resided at 41 Boulevard Ornano before her unexplained disappearance in 1941. Finally, Delerm reveals in his 2023 song "Paris," that his mother Martine lived with her family for 20 years on the rue Marcadet very near the Square Carpeaux. Later, Delerm made Sunday visits there to his grandmother. Perhaps Delerm really did glimpse Modiano one dark and rainy night.
Early in his career (1967-70), Modiano and his school friend, Hughes de Courson (a musician, composer and arranger), had written several songs for well-known singers, primarily Francoise Hardy. It is symbolic, therefore, that Vincent Delerm indirectly ushers Modiano back into the world of “chanson” some 40 years later not only as a character in his song but as the progenitor of the song's verbal and acoustic vibe. By 2004, Modiano had received the French Prix Goncourt in 1978 for his sixth novel Rue des boutiques obscures (“Missing Person”). Delerm himself, the son of two literary parents, was undoubtedly well-acquainted with Modiano’s oeuvre.
Ombres chinoises
Much about Modiano remains mysterious, including the content of his 30+ novels with their focus on questions of identity, loss, memory, disappearance and amnesia. The song’s reference to “l’ombre chinoise de Modiano” in the last, pithy line of the second stanza captures the novelist’s elusive qualities both in his life and in his fiction. In Harper’s Magazine, Peter de Jonge describes Modiano as “an ill-defined figure, an awkward introvert…hesitant and shy.” Modiano’s school-friend collaborator Hughes de Courson commented: “With Patrick, everything is camouflage.” Like Chinese shadow puppets—both Modiano and his characters remain hard to pin down. The reference to “L’ombre chinoise” (“Chinese shadow puppet”) is explained below in notes following the lyrics.
Modiano falls in the lineage of visual artists like Paul Cézanne and Claude Monnet who produced multiple versions of mountains, still lifes, and cathedrals. It is often said, by Modiano himself as well as others, that he “keeps writing the same book.” Modiano commented that his literary production comprises a single work (“on fait toujours le même roman”), presenting different facets of similar themes and characters.
Delerm claimed that the simple melody of his song drew inspiration from Robert Smith’s 1980 gothic rock piece “A Forest.” Delerm is an acknowledged fan of the English rock band “Cure” where Smith was guitarist. Many people view “A Forest” as the group’s greatest song. Its footsteps are clearly discernable in Delerm's piece. The melody of “Le baiser Modiano” is somber in tone and repeats throughout in sympathy with the lyrics’ narrative flow. In this, it conjures the out-of-focus atmosphere of Modiano’s literary output. The song’s four 8-line stanzas rhyme repetitively in a mostly ABABABAB pattern. The lyrics, voice and music synchronize in creating a solemn “atmosphere modianesque.”
Words highlighted in bold italic are explained in the Notes below.
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FRENCH LYRICS
C'est le soir où près du métro Nous avons croisé Modiano Le soir où tu ne voulais pas croire Que c'était lui sur le trottoir Le soir où j'avais dit: “tu vois La fille juste en face du tabac Tu vois le type derrière, de dos En imper gris, c'est Modiano.” C'est le soir où nous avons pris Des moritos jusqu'a minuit Le soir où tu as répété “Peut-être il habite le quartier.” Le soir où nous sommes revenus En dévisageant toute la rue En cherchant derrière les carreaux L'ombre chinoise de Modiano Interlude C'est le soir où je repensais A la veille du bac de français: “En vous appuyant sur le champ Lexical de l'enfermement Vous soulignerez la terreur Dans le regard du narrateur.” Dans les pages cornées d'un folio Voyage de noces de Modiano Et le baiser qui a suivi Sous les réverbères, sous la pluie Devant les grilles du square Carpeaux Et le baiser qui a suivi Sous les réverbères, sous la pluie Devant les grilles du square Carpeaux Je l'apelle Patrick Modiano Instrumental Outro |
TRANSLATION (PENDERGAST)
It’s the evening when near the metro We passed Modiano The evening you didn’t want to believe That it was him on the sidewalk The evening I said: "You see The girl right in front of the tabac You see the guy behind, from behind In a grey raincoat, that’s Modiano." It’s the evening we had Mojitos until midnight The evening when you repeated "Maybe he lives in the neighborhood." The evening when we returned Scrutinizing the whole street Seeking behind the windows The Chinese shadow of Modiano Interlude It’s the evening when I was rethinking The night before the French baccalaureate: "Relying on the word group Related to imprisonment, You will highlight the terror In the narrator's gaze." In the dog-eared pages of a folio copy of “Honeymoon” by Modiano And the kiss that followed Under the streetlights, in the rain Before the gates of Square Carpeaux And the kiss that followed Under the streetlights, in the rain Before the gates of Square Carpeaux I call it Patrick Modiano. Instrumental Outro |
NB:
1) atmosphere modianesque: In awarding Patrick Modiano the medal of “Officier de la Légion d’honneur” in 2015, French President François Hollande defined the adjective “modianesque” as situations in which: “la réalité se dérobe, quand le passé et le présent se mélangent, lorsque les mots deviennent incertains.”
2) Des moritos: this is a common verbal rendition for the word “mojitos” which is a cocktail familar to many people as a blend of rum, club soda, lemon/lime and sugar.
3) derrière les carreaux: this phrase means “behind the windowpanes.”
4) L'ombre chinoise (“Chinese shadows”): This phrase is an apt metaphor for the novels of Patrick Modiano. It refers to Chinese “shadow-puppet” shows that appeared in Europe in the mid-18th century. French puppeteer Dominique Séraphin presented the first popular ombres chinoises in Paris in 1776. In 1781 he moved his show to Versailles to entertain the French court, and three years later he established a puppet theater in Paris at the Palais-Royal that Marie Antoinette frequented. Using silhouettes cast by solid cardboard figures instead of the colored transparencies that were popular in China, the ombres chinoises usually featured short, amusing fables. Although most French shadow theaters had closed by the 1860s, the technique revived between 1887 and 1897 and became a big draw at the famous Montmartre cabaret Le Chat-Noir.
5) les pages cornées: the phrase “corner un livre” means to turn-down or “dog-ear” the pages of a book with the intent of saving a place.
6) Voyage de noces (“Honeymoon”): this is the title of a 1990 novel by Patrick Modiano.
1) atmosphere modianesque: In awarding Patrick Modiano the medal of “Officier de la Légion d’honneur” in 2015, French President François Hollande defined the adjective “modianesque” as situations in which: “la réalité se dérobe, quand le passé et le présent se mélangent, lorsque les mots deviennent incertains.”
2) Des moritos: this is a common verbal rendition for the word “mojitos” which is a cocktail familar to many people as a blend of rum, club soda, lemon/lime and sugar.
3) derrière les carreaux: this phrase means “behind the windowpanes.”
4) L'ombre chinoise (“Chinese shadows”): This phrase is an apt metaphor for the novels of Patrick Modiano. It refers to Chinese “shadow-puppet” shows that appeared in Europe in the mid-18th century. French puppeteer Dominique Séraphin presented the first popular ombres chinoises in Paris in 1776. In 1781 he moved his show to Versailles to entertain the French court, and three years later he established a puppet theater in Paris at the Palais-Royal that Marie Antoinette frequented. Using silhouettes cast by solid cardboard figures instead of the colored transparencies that were popular in China, the ombres chinoises usually featured short, amusing fables. Although most French shadow theaters had closed by the 1860s, the technique revived between 1887 and 1897 and became a big draw at the famous Montmartre cabaret Le Chat-Noir.
5) les pages cornées: the phrase “corner un livre” means to turn-down or “dog-ear” the pages of a book with the intent of saving a place.
6) Voyage de noces (“Honeymoon”): this is the title of a 1990 novel by Patrick Modiano.
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