»Without him, we all would have become accounting clerks«, Jacques Brel once said about Charles Trenet, the godfather of French song who invented modern chanson with his stunning blend of surrealism, nostalgia, buoyancy and joie de vivre. Born exactly 100 years ago, on May 18, 1913, the so-called Fou chantant first pursued a career as a writer: In his early novel Dodo Manières his alter ego feels downright enchanted while listening to Louis Armstrong’s Hobo You Can’t Ride This Train, and jazz was what made him turn to song. Portrayed by Jean Cocteau as an angel on a famous poster, Trenet wrote about 850 songs, among them superb stuff like Je chante, J’ai ta main, Y’a d’la joie, Que reste-t-il des nos amours, Douce France, La route enchantée, of course La mer, and the magnificent L’âme des poètes, a simple, soft-spoken discourse about poets, poetry and immortality.
Charles Trenet – L’âme des poètes
