Les Chansons de Paris

1998?: C D R G  Productions C D R G 502

1. Paris, Je T’Aime d’Amour
   

   Maurice Chevalier, 1932

2. Sur les Quais du Vieux Paris
   

   Lucienne Delyle, 1939

3. Pigalle
   

   Georges Ulmer, 1946

4. Ça, C’Est Paris
   

   Mistinguett1927

5. En Parlant un Peu de Paris
   

   Henri Garat1931

6. À Paris, Dans Chaque Faubourg
   

   Lys Gauty, 1934

7. Où Est-Il Donc?
   

   Fréhel, 1936

8. Dede de Martmartre
   

   Albert Prejean, 1939

9. Entre Saint-Ouen et Clignancourt
   

   Edith Piaf, 1937

10. Menilmontant
    

    Charles Trenet, 1938

11. La Tour Eiffel Est Toujours Là
    

    Mistinguett, 1942

12. Aux Quatre Coins de Paris
    

    Andrex, 1946

13. Quand On S’Promene au Bord de l’Eau
    

    Jean Gabin, 1936

14. Fleur de Paris
    

    Mistinguett, 1942

15. Le Gars de Menilmontant
    

    Maurice Chevalier, 1942

16. J’Ai Deux Amours
    

    Josephine Baker, 1931

17. Sous les Ponts
    

    Perchicot, 1932

18. Y’A de la Joie
    

    Charles Trenet, 1938

19. Oui, Je Suis de Paris
    

    Mistinguett, 1936

20. Adieu, Paris
    

    Berthe Sylva, 1932

21. La Vie Parisienne/Le Bresilien
    

    Offenbach

22. La Vie Parisienne/Je Veux M’En Fourrer
    

    Offenbach

23. Les Trois Valses
    

    O. Strauss

24. Les Cent Vierges
    

    Marcel Cariven

Despite its atrocious cover art, evidently a reference to France’s unexpected upset of Brazil in the 1998 World Cup (I don’t follow sports things but I was in Paris in 1998 a few months after the event and people there were STILL euphoric about it), this is actually a quite good assortment of recordings, mostly of the 1930s–1940s class of sentimentality and nostalgia. Even Piaf sounds almost lovely on this, not as stridently melodramatic as usual, although Mistinguett gets two good and two “ouch!” tracks (the latter are track 4, “Ça, C’Est Paris,” and track 19, “Oui, Je Suis de Paris” which is not quite as bad), and Lys Gauty on track 6 sounds very much like Marlene Dietrich. And then there’s Maurice Chevalier on a couple of tracks, sounding as ridiculous as ever.

Charles Trenet’s rendition of “Menilmontant” has a warm earthiness always bursting into effusive local pride, an abundant delight indulged more fully in “Y’a de la Joie.” The nostalgia theme is most purely represented here by Fréhel’s “Où Est-il Donc?” which simply and sadly wonders where everything went…all the things that made a Parisian neighborhood the simple joy it was, although of course generations later people were bemoaning the loss of even Fréhel’s day; I think that’s a crucial aspect to Paris, for anyone with a sense of heritage and history anyway, the awareness of what has been, all around you no matter what street you’re on.

And of course Josephine Baker’s dreadfully accented French on “J’ai Deux Amous” is as cringeworthy as ever. Skippety-poo.

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Comments © 2005 Mark Ellis Walker, except as noted, and no claim is made to the images and quoted lyrics.