Song saturday; a legend, Edith Piaf

My choice of music this week is …

well not what I would usually chose, but… she is such a true legend.

Édith Piaf
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Much of Piaf's life remains shrouded in mystery and romance. She was born Edith Giovanna Gassion in Belleville, Paris, a high-immigration district. Legend has it that she was born on the pavement of Rue de Belleville 72, but her birth certificate cites the Hôpital Tenon, the hospital for the 20th arrondissement of which Belleville is part.

She was named Édith after the World War I British nurse Edith Cavell, who was executed for helping French soldiers escape from German captivity  Piaf—a Francilien colloquialism for "sparrow"—was a nickname she would receive 20 years later.

Her mother, Annetta Giovanna Maillard (1895–1945), was of French-Italian descent on her father's side and of Algerian Kabyle origin on her mother's. She was a native of Livorno, a port city on the western edge of Tuscany, Italy. She worked as a café singer under the name Line Marsa.

Louis-Alphonse Gassion (1881–1944), Édith's father, was a Norman street acrobat with a past in the theatre. Édith's parents soon abandoned her, and she lived for a short time with her maternal grandmother, Emma (Aïcha) Saïd ben Mohammed (1876–1930). Before he enlisted with the French Army in 1916 to fight in World War I, her father took her to his mother, who ran a brothel in Normandy. There, prostitutes helped look after Piaf.

From the age of three to seven, Piaf was allegedly blind as a result of keratitis. According to one of her biographies, she recovered her sight after her grandmother's prostitutes pooled money to send her on a pilgrimage honoring Sainte Thérèse de Lisieux, resulting in a miraculous healing.

In 1929, at 14, she joined her father in his acrobatic street performances all over France, where she first sang in public.

She took a room at Grand Hôtel de Clermont (18 rue Veron, Paris 18ème) and separated from him, going her own way as a street singer in Pigalle, Ménilmontant, and the Paris suburbs (the song "Elle fréquentait la Rue Pigalle").

She joined her friend Simone Berteaut ("Mômone") in this endeavor, and the two became lifelong partners in mischief. She was about 16 when she fell in love with Louis Dupont, a delivery boy.

At 17, she had her only child, a girl named Marcelle, who died of meningitis at age two. Like her mother, Piaf found it difficult to care for a child while living a life of the streets, so she often left Marcelle behind while she was away, and Dupont raised her until her death.

Piaf's next boyfriend was a pimp named Albert who took a commission from the money she made singing in exchange for not forcing her into prostitution. One of her friends, a girl named Nadia, killed herself when faced with the thought of becoming a prostitute, and Albert nearly shot Piaf when she ended the relationship in reaction to Nadia's death.

(read more of her life on Wikipedia)

AUTUMN

The falling leaves
Drift by the window
The autumn leaves
All red and gold
I see your lips
The summer kisses
The sunburned hands
I used to hold.

Since you went away
The days grow long...
And soon I'll hear
Old winter songs
But I miss you most of all
My darling, when autumn leaves start to fall...

C'est un chanson
Qui nous ressemble
Toi qui m'aimais
Et je t'aimais
Nous vivions tous les deux ensemble
Tou qui m'aimais
Moi qui t'aimais

Mais la vie sépare
Ceux qui s'aiment
Tout doucement
Sans faire de bruit
Et la mer efface sur le sable
Les pas des amants désunis.

Since you went away
The days grow long...
And soon I'll hear
Old winter songs
But I miss you most of all
My darling, when autumn leaves start to fall...