They aren't actually. Not yet.
It's the anticipation I guess. This week Mark Steyn has a piece up about the English version of a great French song. His piece on "Autumn Leaves" is well worth your time and it will only be up until the end of the week.
Mr. James Lileks has a piece that relates well, although not meant to. In the 1920s, pulp magazines used to run ads where people could ask for help finding (usually) relatives who just left without explanation. People who may have run away or may have just fallen in the river and the body was never discovered. Most likely, though, they were gone and didn't want to be found. You'll find it here.
Do you have someone you knew once who you wonder about? Someone you kissed once, or maybe more, and it wasn't love and it wasn't suppposed to be love. It was just one of those things that happen in that odd stage of life after you cease to be a child but before you really start living your adult life. You're not sure she'd really want to see you and you aren't even sure she'd remember you but you couldn't forget her even if you wanted to and you don't want to.
That's the scary thing, that this memory that has becomes so important to you might just be forgotten. I remember Alison Crouse (not her real name) and I've been remembering her for years now. A lot of stuff has happened since when I knew her but I remember the time I knew her as a time when the sun shone more brightly than it does today. I think of her on days like today and ... well, sometimes the more you say the less it means.
Jacques Prévert wrote the words to the French song. It's called Les Feuilles Mortes which means The Dead Leaves. If that sounds unpoetic, that's good. The song is ridiculously simple and that is its brilliance. The second war had just ended and no one needed any help grieving.
It's one of the few songs where the recitative, or spoken intro, is really, really important. "Tu voix, je n'ai pas oublié" says the singer just before beginning. That means, simply, "You see, I haven't forgotten". In the late 1940s, it was very important to be able to think that some things hadn't been forgotten. With so much of life destroyed, it was an act of defiance to assert the importance of lost love.
Oh yeah, one more thing, here's a question: Could you live without "love"? I mean without the word. It seems so important but there are languages, such as French, that have no equivalent to the English word "love". In French we use the word that means "to like" to also mean "to be in love". You'd think that would make a difference but it doesn't. There are more great French love songs than there are great love songs in English.
There are people you think you couldn't live without who leave and it never really bothers you. And there are others you thought only that you liked them and so you let them go easily and their memory haunts you for years.
Over to you Juliette Greco (the best version, I think, because she does the spoken intro perfectly):
It's the anticipation I guess. This week Mark Steyn has a piece up about the English version of a great French song. His piece on "Autumn Leaves" is well worth your time and it will only be up until the end of the week.
Mr. James Lileks has a piece that relates well, although not meant to. In the 1920s, pulp magazines used to run ads where people could ask for help finding (usually) relatives who just left without explanation. People who may have run away or may have just fallen in the river and the body was never discovered. Most likely, though, they were gone and didn't want to be found. You'll find it here.
Do you have someone you knew once who you wonder about? Someone you kissed once, or maybe more, and it wasn't love and it wasn't suppposed to be love. It was just one of those things that happen in that odd stage of life after you cease to be a child but before you really start living your adult life. You're not sure she'd really want to see you and you aren't even sure she'd remember you but you couldn't forget her even if you wanted to and you don't want to.
That's the scary thing, that this memory that has becomes so important to you might just be forgotten. I remember Alison Crouse (not her real name) and I've been remembering her for years now. A lot of stuff has happened since when I knew her but I remember the time I knew her as a time when the sun shone more brightly than it does today. I think of her on days like today and ... well, sometimes the more you say the less it means.
Jacques Prévert wrote the words to the French song. It's called Les Feuilles Mortes which means The Dead Leaves. If that sounds unpoetic, that's good. The song is ridiculously simple and that is its brilliance. The second war had just ended and no one needed any help grieving.
It's one of the few songs where the recitative, or spoken intro, is really, really important. "Tu voix, je n'ai pas oublié" says the singer just before beginning. That means, simply, "You see, I haven't forgotten". In the late 1940s, it was very important to be able to think that some things hadn't been forgotten. With so much of life destroyed, it was an act of defiance to assert the importance of lost love.
Oh yeah, one more thing, here's a question: Could you live without "love"? I mean without the word. It seems so important but there are languages, such as French, that have no equivalent to the English word "love". In French we use the word that means "to like" to also mean "to be in love". You'd think that would make a difference but it doesn't. There are more great French love songs than there are great love songs in English.
There are people you think you couldn't live without who leave and it never really bothers you. And there are others you thought only that you liked them and so you let them go easily and their memory haunts you for years.
Over to you Juliette Greco (the best version, I think, because she does the spoken intro perfectly):
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