Jacques Prévert Les feuilles mortes - art poetry, art song

photo : Flemming Christiansen 2008

Everyone loves the song "Autumn Leaves".  It's so famous that its origins are almost forgotten. The poem is by Jacques Prévert, set by Joseph Kosma.  Prévert was one of the great figures in French poetry in his time, and was also involved in the golden age of French cinema. He wrote scripts for Michel Carné, like Les enfants du Paradis, Le jour se lève, two classics whose quality trancends the genre of "movies" : films that are art in their own right.  Les enfants du Paradies help define me.  Prévert's poetry is so evocative that it also transcends cinema.  Prévert worked closely with Joseph Kosma, who studied with Hanns Eisler, who helped define music for cinema as art music in its own right, not just as sound track. Kosma  also worked with Jean Renoir : class ! Lots on Eisler on this site.  So now that autumn's setting in, a chance to indulge in the poem and the song it inspired.  This translation is much closer to the spirit of the poem than the usual English lyrics.

Oh, je voudrais tant que tu te souviennes,  Des jours heureux quand nous étions amis,  Dans ce temps là, la vie était plus belle,  Et le soleil plus brûlant qu'aujourd'hui.

(Oh how I wish that you would remember the happy days when we were friends. At that time, life was beautiful, and the sun more golden than today) 

Les feuilles mortes se ramassent à la pelle,  Tu vois je n'ai pas oublié. Les feuilles mortes se ramassent à la pelle,  Les souvenirs et les regrets aussi, 
 
(The dead leaves were swept away by rakes, you see, I haven't fogotten.  Menories and regrets swept away, too)

 Et le vent du nord les emporte,  Dans la nuit froide de l'oubli. 
Tu vois, je n'ai pas oublié, 
La chanson que tu me chantais. 
 
(And the north wind carries them away  into the cold night, where they're forgotten.  You see, I haven't forgotten  the song you sang to me.) 

C'est une chanson, qui nous resemble,  Toi qui m'aimais, moi qui t'aimais.  Nous vivions, tous les deux ensemble, Toi qui m'aimais, moi qui t'aimais. 

(It was a song that was like the two of us, you who loved me, I who loved you. We lived, two of us together , you who loved me, I who loved you) (notice how Prévert repeats linese as if they would fade away if he didn't, as if he were holding on to the precious memory before it slips away) 

Et 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. 

(Yet life separates those who love each other, so softly without making a sound, as the sea wipes away the footprints in the sand of lovers now apart).

Nous vivions, tous les deux ensemble,  Toi qui m'aimais, moi qui t'aimais.  Et la vie sépare ceux qui s'aiment,  Tout doucement, sans faire de bruit.
 
(We lived, the two of us together,  you who loved me, I who loved you. But life separates those who have loved,  gently making no noise).

Et la mer efface sur le sable  Les pas des amants désunis...  (and the sea wipes from the sand the traces of those torn apart)

 Please also see my translation of Prévert's Barbara, in Kosma's setting HERE
Recommended recording : Francis Le Roux and Jeff Cohen,  Please see what else I've written on Kosma, French poetry, Mélodie and art song of the period.

Le plat pays - new translation

Avec la mer du Nord pour dernier terrain vague

Et des vagues de dunes pour arrêter les vagues

Et de vagues rochers que les marées dépassent

Et qui ont à jamais le cœur à marée basse

Avec infiniment de brumes à venir

Avec le vent de l'est écoutez-le tenir

Le plat pays qui est le mien

Avec des cathédrales pour uniques montagnes

 Et de noirs clochers comme mâts de cocagne

Où des diables en pierre décrochent les nuages

Avec le fil des jours pour unique voyage

Et des chemins de pluie pour unique bonsoir

Avec le vent d'ouest écoutez-le vouloir

Le plat pays qui est le mien

Avec un ciel si bas qu'un canal s'est perdu

Avec un ciel si bas qu'il fait l'humilité

Avec un ciel si gris qu'un canal s'est pendu

 Avec un ciel si gris qu'il faut lui pardonner

Avec le vent du nord qui vient s'écarteler

Avec le vent du nord écoutez-le craquer

Le plat pays qui est le mien

Avec de l'Italie qui descendrait l'Escaut

Avec Frida la Blonde quand elle devient Margot

Quand les fils de novembre nous reviennent en mai

Quand la plaine est fumante et tremble sous juillet

Quand le vent est au rire quand le vent est au blé

Quand le vent est au sud écoutez-le chanter

Le plat pays qui est le mien.

 Jacques Brel

my translation

With the North Sea for its horizon of waves,  
And the waves, and the dunes to stop the waves,
And the wave tossed rocks that the tides swirl round,
And whose heart is ever at low tide,
With an infinity of fog ahead, 
With the east wind hear it rip,
The flat country, that is mine.

With cathedrals as its only mountains,
With black towers like mâts de cocagne (a cockpit mast pole that's hard to climb)
Where devils in stone (gargoyles) glare at the sky,
Where the passage of days is the only journey,
And roads of rain the only bonsoir,
And only the west wind hears what you want,
The flat country,  that is mine.

With the sky so low that it's lost in the canal,
With the sky so low it's humility,
With the sky so grey it's hangs in the canal.
With the sky so grey it, it begs forgiveness,
With the north winds blowing in disarray,
With the north wind, hear it crack,,
The flat country, that is mine

With Italy descending on l'Escaut
With Frida the blonde when she becomes Margot,
When the sons of November return in May,
When  the fields are smoking and trembling in July,,
When the wind laughs, when the wind is in corn,
When the wind blows from the south, hear it sing.
The flat country, that is mine

Ne me quitte pas

What a beautiful song ! As so often, the most famous English version doesn't convey the power of the song. Jacques Brel's phrasing is unconventional, so the lines compress and run over, and the tempo hesitates and speeds up. It feels like conversation, more human and sincere. Sing this in a more formal or "English" way and much of the inner poetry is lost. The inner pulse is 5 syllables around which the words wrap. (Please also see my post on Gloomy Sunday, Song with  a Curse)

Here's my attempt at translation, which is tricky as so much of the original depends on allitration and word play. "Don't leave me. It would mean forgetting everything, everything that can be forgotten, which has already flown away. Forget the times of misunderstanding, and le temps.... perdu.  How? to forget hours the hours whose memory can kill, sometimes, with the blow of why? The heart of happiness."

"Me ! I could offer you pearls of raindrops from distant lands where it never rains. I'd dig the earth, even after I die, to cover your body with gold and light. I'd create a realm where love would be king, and love would be  law and you would be queen."

"I'd invent for you crazy words that you would understand. I'd speak to you then of lovers who've twice seen their hearts embrace. I'd tell you the story of this dead king who was not able to meet you again. Don't leave me."

"One has often seen  regenerated,  flames of ancient volcanos which seemed too old.  It could be that scorched earth gives more wheat than a good April.  And when evening comes, in a blazing sunset, don't  red and black combine?"

"Don't leave me. I can no longer cry. I can no longer speak. I'll hide myself away where I can watch you dancing and smiling. I'll listen to you sing and laugh Let me become the shadow of your shadow, the shadow of your hand, the shadow of your dog"

The girlfriend, like millions of women before and since, will recognize this type of man. "It's all about you, you, you", Who gives a stuff about promises when the guy doesn't deliver ? But it's still such a moving song, especially the way Brel sings it.