Comment te dire adieu

Posted on 24/01/2021 by StephenJones.blog

Hardy 2

Like I say a little prayer, Back to black, Carminho (among many gems on my Playlist of songs!!!), and festive Bach, it makes me unbearably happy to hear the exquisite chanteuse * Françoise Hardy singing Comment te dire adieu (1968)—the nuances of her expression capturing the ambivalent mood, both in close-up:

and lounging languidly on a chaise longue:

Serge Gainsbourg’s drôle lyrics are brilliant:

Sous aucun prétexte je ne veux
Avoir de réflexes malheureux
Il faut que tu m’ex——pliques un peu mieux
Comment te dire adieu

Mon coeur de silex vite prend feu
Ton coeur de Pyrex résiste au feu
Je suis bien perplexe, je ne veux
Me résoudre aux adieux

(Je sais bien qu’un ex——amour n’a pas de chance, ou si peu
Mais pour moi un ex——plication voudrait mieux)

Sous aucun prétexte je ne veux
Devant toi surex——poser mes yeux
Derrière un Kleenex je saurais mieux
Comment te dire adieu
Comment te dire adieu

(Tu as mis à l’index nos nuits blanches, nos matins gris-bleu
Mais pour moi une ex——plication vaudrait mieux)

Sous aucun prétexte je ne veux
Devant toi surex—poser mes yeux
Derrière un Kleenex je saurais mieux
Comment te dire adieu
Comment te dire adieu
Comment te dire adieu

She sounds soooo cool, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of hurting going on here. Instead, she finds inner strength through a flurry of insouciant wordplay on “ex“—not least Pyrex (a niche hommage to kitchenware in French chanson) and Kleenex. Sex is just a sibilant away….

Nor does she let up in her gorgeous sprechstimme interludes (above a change to triple metre on strings), stressing ex——amour and ex——plication (as in the sung ex——pliques and surex——poser) with an ecc——entric hiatus, negating the natural rhythm of speech—not so much a speech impediment as the kind of deliberate pause advocated by therapists to prepare the stammerer to approach the following syllable (especially plosives) with easy onset!

True, she would make the Paris phone directory sound irresistibly seductive (cf. the HP sauce label), but here her spoken sections further the dramatic effect, ex——punging, ex——orcising her ex——perience. They’re punctuated by a funky syncopated trumpet motif, courtesy of Caravelli, worthy of Hardy’s fellow-Parisian Messiaen—who three years previously had completed the Sept haïkaï…

Then there’s the extra visual frisson of veux, malheureux, aux adieux, mieux. One even hopes to hear her pronouncing the x there (I wonder how this works: do native French speakers somehow hear it in their heads?).

À propos, like many men, Monsieur Pyrex, the passionless, fire-resistant subject of this nonchalent lament, clearly needs his head ex——amining.

The music is suitably minimalist, eschewing melodic or harmonic development—recalling more the theme tune of Soap than the ballads of Michel Legrand (see also Un homme et une femme).

Comment te dire adieu is actually a chic upbeat French recasting of the soupy ballad It hurts to say goodbye, which had recently been recorded by Margaret Whiting and then Vera Lynn—just the kind of ballad I’d love to have heard Dusty sing (cf. You don’t own me; see also How can I miss you when you won’t go away?).

Françoise Hardy subtly subverts both the melodrama and the “gamine elfin waif” trope (see also Feminine endings). Put this song on the British school syllabus and there’ll soon be a legion of fluent young Francophiles…

Her German version of the song works well too; while the lyrics are less detached, they make a bit of an effort to keep the “ex” theme going:

Nach zwei Cognacs ex bekamst du Mut
Deine Abschiedstexte waren gut [Das Lied von der Erde for generation X?]
Ratlos und perplex nur dachte ich
Was mach ich ohne dich

Stets war mein Komplex du bist zu schön
Charm hast du für sechs, ach was, für zehn **
Liebt denn so was exklusiv nur mich
Was mach ich ohne dich

(Ob du daran denkst
Wie einsam und verloren ich bin
Nein, du hast schon längst
Eine Andere im Sinn)

Gib mir keinen Extrakuss jetzt mehr
Der nur noch Reflexbewegung wäre
Ratlos und perplex nur frag ich mich
Was mach ich ohne dich
Was mach ich ohne dich

(All die Nächte mit dir
Voll von Glück bis zum Morgengrauen
Die und dich stahl mir
Eine andere Frau)

Diese Dame X, die dich mir nimmt
Fliegt auf deine Tricks wie ich, bestimmt
Dann als Dame ex sagt sie wie ich
Was mach ich ohne dich
Was mach ich ohne dich

And she sings it in Italian, with yet another angle on the story:

Non voglio un pretesto per pietà
Sai che io detesto falsità
Sii un po’ più onesto quando vuoi
Finirla fra di noi

Non restar perplesso ad inventar
Scuse che del resto non van mai
Oltre ad un modesto rendez-vous
A cui non vieni più

(Io so bene che i castelli di carta
Con un soffio van giù
Non ne hai colpa tu)

Non voglio un pretesto per pietà
Sai che io detesto falsità
Dammi il fazzoletto quando vuoi
Finirla fra di noi
Finirla fra di noi

That first verse is good:

I don’t want an excuse for piety
Know that I detest falsity
Be a bit more honest when you want
To finish it between us.

One might think Spanish regional languages would offer potential for the exes too. Anyway, the nuances of mood in these various versions are intriguing. Possibly a multilingual EU directive to Brexit Britain?

Françoise Hardy did a more melancholic version with her soul sister (twin?) Jane Birkin in 1976 (Comment lui dire adieu!):