Edith Piaf - The Voice

My mom always took special pride that she saw Edith Piaf perform in Paris.
As a Parisian, she took pleasure in the torch singer's special brand of entertainment.
  No one has ever come close to matching Ms. Piaf's tormented vibrato and
melodramatic notes.  She invented her own unique brand,
becoming the iconic Voice of France.

Piaf's life has been debated and overdrawn, resulting in countless histories, myths and legends about the singer.  The Marion Cotillard movie ("La Vie en Rose") of 2007 brought Edith
Piaf's face and voice to a fresh audience.  Yet here we are, gasping with wonder and
awe as soon as she opens her mouth and lets loose with That Voice.  Nicknamed
The Little Sparrow, she was teeny tiny, just 4'8" with a size 34 shoe (kids' size 3 according
to Zappo's).  Her plain dress (black, of course!) did not make her fodder for fashion spreads.
She was no Beyoncé.

Edith Piaf's melodies were purely mid-century but her lyrics (she wrote most of her own)
came straight from her lacerated heart.
No matter what decade dictates your musical preference, La Môme remains in style.

  How she loved men!  And life!  And drink......and unfortunately in her later years, painkillers.  Edith Piaf died at the age of 47 of liver failure.  She was wracked with the pain of arthritis and hooked on painkillers and morphine.  Her husband, 20 years her junior, drove her body in secret from the French Riviera all the way to Paris to please her fans.  The archbishop of Paris
forbade her mass but 40,000 mourners showed up at Père Lachaise to pay their respects.

Though better known for the standards "La Vie en Rose" and "Non, Je ne
Regrette Rien", my personal favorite has always been "Milord".  Get a taste of
her lyrics below.  Although it refers to a girl from the port or the docks,
I've always believed the song was about a streetwalker, a prostitute who had enough coins to sit in a café and admire a well-to-do British gentleman (Milord). 

Come along, Milord!
Sit at my table;
It is so cold, outside,
Here it's comfortable.
Relax, Milord
And make yourself at ease,
Your troubles on my heart
And your feet on a chair
I know you, Milord,
You've never seen me,
I'm just a girl from the docks,
Just a shadow of the street... Yet, I crossed you,
While you were passing yesterday,
You were so proud,
God! The sky made you perfect:

Your silk scarf
Floating on your shoulders,
You were so beautiful
You could have been mistaken for the king...
You were walking victoriously

A woman on your arm,
My God! ... How beautiful she was...
It makes my blood run cold..


Taken from http://lyricstranslate.com/en/milord-milord.html#ixzz38nnDfDqc

A bit further in the song, she also sings:

Come into my kingdom.
I heal remorse.
I sing romance.
I sing about Milords who are unlucky.
Look at me, Milord.
You've never seen me before....

Was she singing about herself?  I love the reference to "her kingdom."
  Supposedly, she grew up in her grandmother's brothel
after being abandoned by her parents.  And yet she loved to sing about love and hope.
  Piaf was sassy; she had guts, supposedly even outsmarting some Nazi bigshots
as she helped local Jews outwit their captors. 

Edith Piaf was born Edith Giovanna Gassion in Belleville, a place you'd call
the "wrong side of the tracks" in her day.  Local legend has it that two
gendarmes delivered her on the steps of a slum building in the offbeat quartier.

These days, Belleville is an up and coming neighborhood, still saucy but with a good mix of people, restaurants and art. It's particularly well known for street art, where graffiti is
actually encouraged.  Rue Dénoyez is filled with exuberant displays of street art culture
  and local galleries line several other streets and alleys.  Edith Piaf would have been proud.
  She displayed passion and hope no matter what came her way.

Parc de Belleville is GORGEOUS!

Ms. Piaf's many lovers (including Yves Montand whose career she helped launch) may have caused her much heartache but they also stretched her musical talents into territory
few have wandered.  Many people in the arts have succumbed to their temptations.  We've witnessed individual triumphs & tragedies from any number of "artistic types".
  Amy Winehouse, Janis Joplin, Billie Holiday, Patsy Cline all died much too young
and under tragic circumstances, but I can't think of one other torch singer that
could belt it out the way she did for an entire nation.

Her star rose even after WWII.  She scored two televised performances on
The Ed Sullivan Show, quite an accomplishment for someone who seemed
the exact opposite of Hollywood glamor.

It's hard to compare The Little Sparrow to anyone else in today's music industry. There is simply no VOICE like hers and yet somewhere, somehow, I can feel Edith Piaf's heart beating when I think of Dolly Parton's iconic hymn "Coat of Many Colors".  Read these lyrics and see for yourself.  Perhaps Edith Piaf's brand is still rockin' today.

"Coat of Many Colors" by Dolly Parton

Back through the years
I go wonderin' once again
Back to the seasons of my youth
I recall a box of rags that someone gave us
And how my momma put the rags to use
There were rags of many colors
Every piece was small
And I didn't have a coat
And it was way down in the fog
Momma sewed the rags together
Sewin' every piece with love
She made my coat of many colors
That I was so proud of
As she sewed, she told a story
From the bible, she had read
About a coat of many colors
Joseph wore and then she said
Perhaps this coat will bring you
Good luck and happiness
And I just couldn't wait to wear it
And momma blessed it with a kiss

My coat of many colors
That my momma made for me
Made only from rags
But I wore it so proudly
Although we had no money
I was rich as I could be
In my coat of many colors
My momma made for me

So with patches on my britches
Holes in both my shoes
In my coat of many colors
I hurried off to school
Just to find the others laughing
And making fun of me
In my coat of many colors
My momma made for me

And oh I couldn't understand it
For I felt I was rich
And I told them of the love
My momma sewed in every stitch
And I told 'em all the story
Momma told me while she sewed
And how my coat of many colors
Was worth more than all their clothes

But they didn't understand it
And I tried to make them see
That one is only poor
Only if they choose to be
Now I know we had no money
But I was rich as I could be
In my coat of many colors
My momma made for me
Made just for me

Piaf & Parton -- perhaps not as different as you think