“I have to say that I’m always in love,” Édith Piaf stated during a 1961 interview on the French television music show Discorama. “I never knew a moment when I wasn’t.”
The French singer and songwriter, who rose to fame during the 1930s and ’40s, was a master linguist of love, the good and bad of it. With her classics “Hymne à l’Amour (Hymn to Love)” and “Milord,” a song about a lover’s betrayal, along with “Les Amants d’un Jour” and “A Quoi Ca Sert L’Amour,” among others, Piaf crafted one of the thickest songbooks of love within her brief life.
By 1940, Piaf first gained recognition after starring alongside Jean Cocteau in the one-act play Le Bel Indifférent and became a popular figure during the German occupation of France in World War II, despite being later accused of collaborating with the Germans and being brought to trial in 1944. Those who spoke on Piaf’s behalf revealed that she had helped hide Jewish colleagues, including her “L’Accordéoniste” writer Michel Emer, during the occupation.
As the war was coming to an end, along with music composed by Louis Guglielmi and her longtime collaborator Marguerite Monnot, Piaf had her biggest breakthrough with the 1945 ballad she wrote, “La Vie En Rose.”
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[RELATED: Nick Cave’s Stirring Cover of Édith Piaf Classic on Jack Antonoff Project]
“Life in Pink”
Translated as “Life in Pink” in English, “La Vie En Rose” suggests seeing life through rose-colored glasses—when one is in love, bien sur, and was a message that was embraced during and after the war, first becoming popular in 1946 before its release as a single a year later.
Des yeux qui font baisser les miens
Un rire qui se perd sur sa bouche
Voilà le portrait sans retouche
De l’homme auquel j’appartiens
Eyes that lower mine
A laugh that is lost on his lips
That’s the untouched portrait
Of the man to whom I belong
___
Quand il me prend dans ses bras
Qu’il me parle tout bas
Je vois la vie en rose
Il me dit des mots d’amour
Des mots de tous les jours
Et ça m’fait quelque chose
When he holds me in his arms
When he speaks to me softly
I see life in pink
He speaks words of love to me
Everyday words
And that does something to me
Piaf had several loves throughout her life, most notably the French boxer Marcel Cerdan, with whom she had a passionate affair from 1948 through his death in a plane crash in 1949. Cerdan was the inspiration behind another Piaf classic, “Hymne à l’Amour,” which she dedicated to him in 1950.
She later married French singer and actor Théo Sarapo, and remained with him until her death in 1963 at the age of 47.
Il est entré dans mon cœur
Une part de bonheur
Dont je connais la cause
C’est lui pour moi, moi pour lui dans la vie
Il me l’a dit, l’a juré, pour la vie
Et dès que je l’aperçois
Alors, je sens en moi
Mon cœur qui bat
He has entered my heart
A piece of happiness
The cause of which I know
It’s him for me, me for him in life
He said that to me, swore it for life
And as soon as I see him
I feel in me
My heart that pounds
Piaf, on the Secret to Writing a Love Song
Like Piaf’s two previous songs, including “Milord” and “Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien (No, I Don’t Regret Anthing)” and “Milord,” which were translated into English, “La Vie En Rose” was also translated by Mack Davis for recordings.
In the decades after its release, nearly 1,000 artists have been enchanted by “La Vie En Rose,” with everyone from Bing Crosby, Dean Martin, and Louis Armstrong recording earlier versions of the song in the ’50s and ’60s. Later on, Grace Jones released a nearly seven-and-a-half-minute interpretation of “La Vie En Rose” on her album Portfolio, which became a Top 10 hit in France and Italy. Tony Bennett and k.d. lang also picked up a Grammy nomination for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals for their 2001 duet of Piaf’s classic.
Cyndi Lauper, Belinda Carlisle, Jewel, and Lady Gaga were some of the female artists who brought “La Vie En Rose” into the 21st century. Iggy Pop even gave it a go on his 2012 album Après.
In 2024, Nick Cave also took a crack at “La Vie En Rose,” recording it for the Jack Antonoff-produced soundtrack for the Apple+ miniseries The New Look, which chronicled how the fashion icons Coco Chanel, Christian Dior, Cristóbal Balenciaga, and Pierre Balmain navigated World War II.
When asked what her secret was to writing the perfect love song, Piaf put it simply: “I think both the composer and the songwriter have to be in love in real life. Otherwise, they can’t write a love song.”
Photo: Jean-Gabriel Seruzier/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images
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