The feature picture in this post was taken off Pulau Bukum on November 21 2021 at 10.08 am: a pleasant sunny sight of the sea off Singapore.
The sea
“La Mer” is “the sea” in French. La Mer is also the name of song by French composer lyricist, singer and showman Charles Trenet. It was first released by Roland Gerbeau in 1945 without success. A year later Charles Trenet himself released his first recording of it and he succeeded. Over the years, La Mer has become “a chanson classic and jazz standard with a large number of prominent artists recording their own versions”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Mer_(song)
Charles Trenet’s version
I first heard of La Mer sung by Charles Trenet some thirty years ago. Although I could not understand a word of it, I thought it was a nice song and listened to the end of the song. Here’s a video recording of the man himself singing it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXQh9jTwwoA
Lyrics in French and English
My next task in this post is to place the lyrics in La Mer, side by side with the corresponding lyrics in English, something I wanted to do for a long time. I have done it. Enjoy your lesson in French.
Brief history of the song
Wikipedia records that Charles Trenet wrote an initial version of the song’s lyrics at age of 16 but he did not have a tune for it for some years. The tune came to him in 1943 when he was travelling in a train between Montpellier and Perpignan while he was gazing out of the window. He jotted the tune down on a piece of paper and worked out the details with his pianist Leo Chauliae. That evening they performed the piece in front of the audience but did not create much impact.
The song was first recorded at the end of 1945 by Roland Gerbeau together with Jo Bouillon’s orchestra. Albert Lasry provided the orchestration and chorus. It did not succeed. In 1946, Trenet himself recorded his song for the first time and it was a success.
Over the years the song became popular throughout the world with a number of artists recording their own versions. “Beyond the sea” by Bobby Darin using the same tune but totally different lyrics was particularly successful and it became the signature song for this American singer. Hear it here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8OlDPqYBLw
In 1966, La Mer had over 100 different recordings, and by the time of Trenet’s death in 2001, there were more than more than 4000 different recordings of it, and in total more than 70 million copies sold were sold (Wikipwedia, 2021).
In conclusion
La Mer is now 75 years old since its initial release by Charles Trenet in 1946. It is still immensely popular today. Enjoy it.
Dr LG Goh
Dr GOH Lee Gan is a retired Associate Professor in the Department of Family Medicine, National University Health System. He has an interest in learning and teaching how we can age well everyday (AWE).
