SONG OF THE DAY
“Non, je ne regrette rien” by Edith Piaf (single, 1960). Written by Charles Dumont and Michel Vaucaire.
MY TAKE
WARNING: This song can get stuck in your head, for reals, so play that video with caution. It has got to be the “da-DA-da-DA” (see below, the “Interesting Facts” section).
I saw La vie en rose a month ago, and haven’t gotten this song out of my head for even one day since. It’s the premier classic of classic french songs, so you have to know it if you want to at all appear worldly or knowledgeable. I quoted it last week on facebook and was rather impressed with myself, if I do say so myself. I’d love to do a cover of it someday; you know, when I’m recording my French album or something. But no more talk of covers: the original is so worthy of attention, praise and comment. The original is so brilliantly painful. I would have killed to see her perform this live. I mean, it’s the story of her life, of her struggles, it’s a woman brutally battling with illness and addiction at the end of her star-streak of a life, standing firm on the stage and telling the audience “No, no, I have no regrets”. That’s some powerful stuff. Edith Piaf is the only performer who will truly breathe that kind of life into the song, since it was specially written for her brief return to the Olympia stage before illness presented her from performing for the remainder of her life. It’s a swan song not unlike Billie Holiday’s “I’m A Fool To Want You” from her final album Lady In Satin, only Billie spent her whole life struggling with and through her relationships with men. So, for her, those relationships echo in her final message. But for Edith Piaf, the final message to the world isn’t just about men, or drugs, or alcohol, or her daughter’s tragic death, or her street performing days, or her parents, or any single thing. The final message is about each and every thing that she’s done in the world during her short life. She regrets none of it, she proclaims. It made her who she was at the end, both good and bad. It all brought the illness, sure, but it also brought the fame, the love, the friendships. Good or bad, no regrets. What a sweet note to end on.
INTERESTING FACTS (a la wikipedia)
– “Non, je ne regrette rien” (translation: “No, I regret nothing”) is a French song composed by Charles Dumont, with lyrics by Michel Vaucaire.
– It was written in 1956, and is best known through its 1960 recording by Édith Piaf.
– Piaf dedicated her recording of the song to the French Foreign Legion. At the time of the recording, France was engaged in a military conflict, the Algerian War (1956–1962), and the 1st REP (1st Foreign Parachute Regiment) — which backed a temporary putsch of 1961 by the French military against the civilian leadership of Algeria — adopted the song when their resistance was broken. The leadership of the Regiment was arrested and tried but the non-commissioned officers, corporals and Legionnaires were assigned to other Foreign Legion formations. They left the barracks singing the song, which has now become part of the French Foreign Legion heritage and is sung when they are on parade.
– The song has been recorded by at least a dozen other artists.
– It is used as the finale of the film La Vie En Rose, a biography of Piaf. The film closes with her debuting the song at The Olympia in November, 1960.
– The song was played over the public address at the Stade de France, Paris, following the French Rugby Union team’s elimination from the 2007 Rugby World Cup semi-finals.
– It also accompanied Anna Bessonova and Ukrainian team of rhythmic gymnastics at Gymnastics Gala of Beijing Olympics games 2008.
– The song is featured in many movies, including Bull Durham (1988) in which a character refers to Piaf as a “crazy Mexican singer”; Doris Dörrie’s German film Keiner liebt mich(1994), titled Nobody Loves Me in English; Babe: Pig in the City (1998); Bernardo Bertolucci’s film The Dreamers (2003); the Coen Brothers’ film Intolerable Cruelty; the 2005 film Monamour; the British animated WWII film Valiant in which members of the French Resistance “play” it, 12 years before the song was written; mashed up as part of the song “Nique la police,” in the French film La Haine (1995). It is featured extensively in Chris Nolan’s 2010 film Inception, which stars Marion Cotillard who portrayed Piaf in La Vie En Rose.
– The song is featured in many television commercials, including an eBay commercial in which a woman drops her ring down the sink.
– The German band Rammstein borrows the lines “Oh non rien de rien, Oh non je ne regrette rien” for the song “Frühling in Paris” off their 2009 album “Liebe Ist Für Alle Da”.
– Britain’s Got Talent contestant Janey Cutler sang the English translation this song for the first round audition and the final in series 4.
– The rhymes of the words echo the rhythm of the melody following typical French meter, where words almost always stress the final syllable, in spondaic (da-DA-da-DA) — the cadence imitated by composer Hans Zimmer for a movie score based on the song — and anapestic (da-da-DA-da-da-DA) compositions.
– A literal translation is unable to maintain the internal harmony of lyric and tune, since English words usually stress an earlier syllable and are most often suited to iambic (DA-da-DA-da) and trochaic (DA-da-da-DA-da-da) meter.
– A variety of English language versions have been recorded. Discussion of their merits are ongoing.
– Elaine Paige recorded the song for her 1994 album, Piaf, which was released to coincide with her portrayal of the lead character in the play of the same name.
– Singer Shirley Bassey covered this song on the album Love Songs.
– Brazilian singer Cássia Eller opened her Acústico MTV album (2001) with a cover of this song. It would be her final album before her death, in the same year.