Nantes
Posted in Chanson, Farewells on Apr 25th, 2009 1 Comment »
When I first heard this song, written and sung by the incomparable French chanteuse, Barbara, I thought it was about a woman, who after years of separation, is returning to see her long lost lover in the last moments of his life. Till almost the end, there is nothing in the song to make us us think otherwise. Then, just before the close, Barbara stops and, in a light high voice filled with anguish pronounces the words “Mon père. Mon père.” It is not a lost lover she has come to find again but someone deeper-buried in her heart – her father. What has been touching and sad to this point now becomes tragic. The song could only have this tragic quality carried on the voice of a woman, invoking the special quality of a daughter’s relationship with her father, that no other can share. Here’s the final verse.
‘He came back one evening. It was his last journey, it was his last resting place. Before dying he wanted to warm himself again in my smile but he died the same night without saying farewell or “I love you”. By the road that runs by the sea, sleeping in the garden of stones I saw him to his rest. I laid him to rest under the roses.
My father. My father.
It is raining over Nantes. And I remember. The sky over Nantes pains my heart.’
There is something in the flat way Barbara delivers the words, as if struggling to show no emotion, that makes it so compelling.
