Chanson Francaise Revival in my Living Room

My musical listening habits have always been eclectic.  I'm no stranger to Medieval, Baroque, Classical, and Romantic music.  Blues and sometimes even country (though not of the contemporary variety) are on my playlist.  In small doses I can groove on bluegrass, rap, rai, zydeco, swing, fado, jazz, and probably just about any musical genre you could name.  My musical taste was largely forged during the rock era, which was burgeoning about the time I came into existence.  So my default music mode was (and is) rock. 

Trouble is, rock has always been pretty much an anglo-dominated genre.  So what is a rabid francophile to listen to?  While living in France, I did as many French people do and listened mostly to English-language music, interspersed with the occasional songs by Francis Cabrel or a handful of other French singers that I found appealing enough. (A big mea culpa to my French readers for this infidelity.)  All in all, I felt about most French popular music performers as I do about American cars--they're OK, but not a product that I am going to choose when other options are available.         

The human brain must be wired such that one's taste in music changes with age.  I am enjoying music that I never would have considered listening to for pleasure until fairly recently.   Not that I have started digging the "champagne music" of Lawrence Welk reruns, but a new appreciation is emerging for things I once would have dismissed as bland variety-show fare.  I have belatedly discovered some French music that existed before my rock-and-roll heart was beating. 

So the old becomes new to these virgin ears.  For example, no one escapes the ubiquitous melodies immortalized by Edith Piaf.  But I knew them mostly as background music or movie soundtracks.  I never paid much attention to her voice and phrasing before.  They are soulfully cool beyond words.  Some tracks have annoying, jangly instrumentals, but when the purity of her vocals is allowed to shine through, it is luminous.  The Charles Aznavour of La Boheme evokes memories of living on l'air du temps in Montmartre (pre-gentrification).  The quality of his voice and his phrasing are soothing and melodic.  He sings of a time when on etait jeunes, on etait fous (we were young, we were crazy) and when nous avions tous du génie (we all had [artistic] genius).  He sings of staying up all night to rework a drawing and of trading a canvas for a good hot meal in a bistro in order to subsist. And not to glorify poverty, but the theme of la vie de boheme seems so radically out of sync with today's money culture that it gives one pause.   At one point these images might have seemed like serial cliches, but to me they derive new relevance from the contrast they pose with the prevailing ethos. No longer just part of the soundtrack playing in the background, old standards like these have become my music of choice, for the moment. 

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