Thursday, February 10, 2011

Tu Es Partout

Perhaps the greatest torch singer of the 1940s and 1950s Edith Piaf's best remembered songs are: La Vie En Rose, Les Trois Cloches, and Je Ne Regrette Rien.  Tu Es Partout was prominently featured in "Saving Private Ryan."  It's haunting refrain stayed with me long after I left the theater.  (Yes, I know the movie is from 1998.)

Piaf's life mirrored the tragic music she sang.  Her personal heartaches may have led her music to take on a more poignant quality.  Whatever the cause, it stirs my soul every time I listen to something she recorded.  If you do not understand French fluently, do not worry.  Her voice transcends language.  So raw, so melancholy, so beautiful, one cannot help but feel the pull of the music.

Tu Es Partout interested me in Edith Piaf.  I fell in love with her voice, as I often do with beautiful music.  I urge you to listen and appreciate a different era of music.  A time when the world was at war.  When Big Band/Swing was the highlight of the dance halls and nobody's jukebox had been touched by "Rock 'N Roll."

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