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.