Charles Trenet

86 and 14 New Songs!

Paris 

17/05/1999 - 

Charles Trenet gathered the press for three events, three more in a career marked with thousands of songs and more than 60 international hits among them from "Que reste-il de nos amours", "Y'a d'la joie", "Douce France", to "Je chante". Three events in more than 60 years of his career: his recent nomination to the Academie des Beaux-Arts, the release of his new album "Les Poetes descendent dans la rue" and his 86th spring on May 18th. We are certain that the poet has remained "faithful", the proof is his three recitals next November. Always green and his eye bluer than ever.

"Please welcome Mr. Charles Trenet" ... glorious entrance of the legend amidst applause in the wood-paneled lounge of the Hotel Raphael, near Place de l'Etoile in Paris. Always green and the eye bluer than ever, his gait less confident but even so his language is still alert, Charles Trenet is immediately modest as he meets the applause: "If not, I won't be able to say anything rotten." .

National monument, singing legend, what does Mr Trenet think about all of his laurels? "It takes away a bit of my distress. " And he prefers to comment on his nomination to the Academie des Beaux-Arts for painting and music, which consoles him for not being elected to the Academie Francaise (for writers), "Maybe I was wrong to have applied" .

But the press wants to know a bit more about his new album "Les Poetes descendent dans la rue", which owes its name to the first edition of Printemps des Poetes (Springtime of Poets) organized by Jack Lang the former minister of Culture. Charles Trenet assures us that this album is unlike any other apart from maybe his poetry. Fourteen unreleased songs, some just written, others pulled out of drawers, "written with simple words, it's not by listening to my songs that the new generation will enrich its vocabulary." .

The poet takes his poetry to the streets

The creator of "Jardin extraordinaire" remembers a letter written to him by Jean Cocteau complementing him on "his songs which take to the streets". And Charles Trenet thus confirms that he prefers to create rather than to sacrifice himself to a fashion that he doesn't have in his blood, noting among his favourite artists George Brassens "who did songs that I would never be capable of doing" and Francis Cabrel for the "young generation".

The recurring theme of childhood is also present in this new album, the childhood he never had: "war is no fun: the child in me developed as I was growing up so I am a big kid." And when a journalist criticises him for having written so little on the world around him, surprising us with a song on the theme (sweetened) of the suburbs, Charles Trenet gets out of it by side-stepping the question: "the world around me is one that I see, for me the definition of poetry, it's the art of dreaming." A hint of revolt? "Yes, even if I like order and in particular the expression "les forces de l'ordre" (a play on words: the forces of order/the police), which would make a great title of a song" this is how Charles Trenet confirms that he has fought all his life against disorder.

Just like when the big man yells a little when the order of his songs is a bit turned upside down by the new marketing techniques, "but be especially wary of mixing, they erase everything, you can't recognise the songs anymore" , regretting that we don't even dare speak about songs, highlighting the fact, not without humour, that "now we're talking about titles, we perform titles... without knowing if they are listed on the stock market, in any case without nobility in the way we sing them". ("titres"= titles or stocks)

La Mer, le long des golfes clairs

The mystery about the writing of "La Mer" has finally been cleared up. Several versions exist today, the singer swears that he wrote this song as a poem in alexandrine when he was sixteen. "a few years later, in 1943, on a train between Sète and Montpellier (on the southern coast of France) while we were passing in front of the ponds (very numerous in this area) I wrote the music in one shot. On toilet paper."

And when he is asked the question if one day he will write his memoires, he doesn't see the point, "first of all because I'm losing it a bit" . and prefers "to invent truths" Finally with regards to his upcoming birthday, Charles Trenet attributes his longevity to his genes, "My mother died at the age of 91, I'm only 86. (...) and at each birthday a new life begins ". So, have a long life and Happy Birthday Mr. Charles Trenet!

Pascale Hamon
Translated by S. Renaudon

Charles Trenet "Les poètes descendent dans la rue" (WEA)