What Remains of Our Love?

 

QUE RESTE-T-IL DE NOUS AMOURS?

Ce soir le vent qui frappe à ma porte
Me parle des amours mortes
Devant le feu qui s’ éteint
Ce soir c’est une chanson d’ automne
Dans la maison qui frissonne
Et je pense aux jours lointains

{Refrain:}

Que reste-t-il de nos amours
Que reste-t-il de ces beaux jours
Une photo, vieille photo
De ma jeunesse
Que reste-t-il des billets doux
Des mois d’ avril, des rendez-vous
Un souvenir qui me poursuit
Sans cesse

Bonheur fané, cheveux au vent
Baisers volés, rêves mouvants
Que reste-t-il de tout cela
Dites-le-moi

Un petit village, un vieux clocher
Un paysage si bien caché
Et dans un nuage le cher visage
De mon passé

Les mots les mots tendres qu’on murmure
Les caresses les plus pures
Les serments au fond des bois
Les fleurs qu’on retrouve dans un livre
Dont le parfum vous enivre
Se sont envolés pourquoi?

{au Refrain}

 

_________________________________

 

WHAT REMAINS OF OUR LOVE?

Tonight the wind that slaps at my door
Speaks to me of past love affairs
Before the fire that wanes
Tonight it’s a song of autumn
In the house that shivers
And I think of days long ago

{Refrain: }

What remains of our love?
What remains of these beautiful days?
A photo, an old photo
Of my youth
What remains of the love letters
Of months in April, of rendez-vous
A memory that follows me
Incessantly

Withered good times, wind in hair
Stolen kisses, moving dreams
What remains of all that?
Tell me

A village, an old hometown
( A countryside so well hidden
And in a cloud the dear face
Of my past)

The words the tender words that one murmurs
The caresses most pure
The vows deep in the woods
The flowers one finds again in a book
The perfume of which inebriates you
That disappeared why?

{Refrain}

 

Que reste-t-il de nos amours? (What Remains of Our Love?) is a French popular song, with music by Léo Chauliac & Charles Trenet and lyrics by Charles Trenet.

The song was first recorded by Charles Trenet in 1943. It was used extensively in the François Truffaut’s film Stolen Kisses (1968), its French title, Baisers volés, having been taken from the song’s lyrics. The song was also used in the films Iris (Richard Eyre, 2001), Something’s Gotta Give“(Nancy Meyers, 2003) and Ces amours-là (Claude Lelouch, 2010). The song is best known to English-speaking audiences as I Wish You Love, with new lyrics by Albert A. Beach: introduced in 1957 by Keely Smith as the title cut of her solo debut album, I Wish You Love would become one of Smith’s signature songs.
 

To listen Charles Trenet’s song, please take a gander at The Genealogy of Style‘s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Genealogy-of-Style/597542157001228?ref=hl

All The World Is a Stage

Take a Bow is a midtempo pop ballad with a “Sukiyaki”-like Japanese touch, performed by American singer-songwriter Madonna. It was released as the Bedtime Stories‘ second single on October 28, 1994. The song also appears on her compilation albums Something to Remember (1995), GHV2 (2001) and Celebration (2009).

Following the release Madonna’s first book publication, Sex, the erotic thriller, Body of Evidence, and the album, Erotica, in the early 1990s, the media and public’s backlash against Madonna’s overtly sexual image was at a peak. Released in early March, 1994, her first musical release after Erotica was the tender ballad I’ll Remember from the soundtrack of the film With Honors. When Madonna appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman on March 31, 1994 to promote the single, her coarse language and behavior—which was provocative, seemingly random at times, full of double entendres (at one point asking Letterman to sniff her panties), profanities, and ended with a refusal to leave the set—caused yet another large public controversy. Following this, Madonna decided to tone down her image and move her career into a new direction. Musically, she explored new-jack R&B styles with a generally mainstream, radio-friendly sound. This new R&B sound was reflected in Bedtime Stories. For Take a Bow, Madonna wanted a more “romantic vein” so she worked with Babyface on the track because he had proved himself to be very successful in his previous works with smooth R&B, working with other artists such as Whitney Houston, Boyz II Men, and Toni Braxton.

The chorus expresses the theme of saying goodbye to a lover who had taken her for granted. The title plays upon the verse in the song “all the world is a stage and everyone has their part,” a reference to the line by William Shakespeare in his play As You Like It, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women mere players”. In his book Madonna: An Intimate Biography, J. Randy Taraborrelli describes the song as a “somber, sarcastic, all-the-world’s-a-stage song about unrequited love… [about a subject] whose phoniness might have fooled everyone else, but not her.” He goes on to say that in the song Madonna tells the subject of her unrequited love to take a bow for “rendering a great, transparent performance in life and love.”

The music video for Take a Bow was directed by Michael Haussman, and is a lavish period-style piece filmed from November 3–8, 1994 in Ronda and in the bullring of Antequera, Spain. It was outfitted by famed stylist Lori Goldstein who received the VH1 Fashion and Media award for best styling. The plot, set in the 1940s, depicts Madonna as a neglected lover of a bullfighter, played by real-life Spanish bullfighter Emilio Muñoz. Madonna’s character yearns for the bullfighter’s presence, with erotic heartbreak. A total of three different bulls were used during the production of the music video. It generated controversy with animal rights activists who accused the singer of glorifying bullfighting.

 
 

 
 

In the video Madonna wears fitted, classic suits by British fashion designer John Galliano. In an interview with MTV’s Kurt Loder on the set of the music video, Madonna said that when she was initially writing Take a Bow the inspiration for the song was an actor, but she wanted the male character in the video to be to be a matador instead because she wanted the video to be about an “obsessive, tragic love story that doesn’t work out in the end” and a matador would be more visually effective in expressing the emotion of the song. The style of the music video has been compared to Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar‘s 1986 film Matador, starring Antonio Banderas.  The music video for Madonna’s 1995 single You’ll See is considered a follow up to the Take a Bow music video, as Madonna and Emilio Muñoz reprise their roles. In that video Madonna’s character walks out on Munoz’s (bullfighter) character, leaving him behind in despair. Madonna’s character is then seen on the train and later on a plane, while Munoz’s character tries to catch up with her in vain.

Madonna requested that Haussman give the video a Spanish theme because, at the time, she was lobbying for the role of Eva Perón in the film version of Evita. She subsequently sent a copy of the video to director Alan Parker as a way of “auditioning” for the role. Madonna eventually won the role of Perón.

The music video for Take a Bow inspired Justin Timberlake‘s video for SexyBack (Michael Haussman, 2006) and was later tributed by Britney Spears‘ video for “Radar” (Dave Meyers, 2009). Madonna won Best Female Video honors at the 1995 MTV Video Music Awards for the Take a Bow music video. It was also nominated for Best Art Direction in a Video, but lost to Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson‘s Scream.

To watch Take a Bow music video, please take a gander at The Genealogy of Style’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Genealogy-of-Style/597542157001228?ref=hlt

It Takes Two to Tango

 
 

Objection (Tango) is a song recorded by Colombian singer-songwriter Shakira for her fifth studio album and first English-language album Laundry Service (2001). It was the first song Shakira wrote in English after being encouraged by American singer Gloria Estefan to record material in the language. American singer Gloria Estefan, whose husband Emilio Estefan was managing Shakira at that time, felt that Shakira had the potential to crossover into the mainstream pop industry. However, Shakira was initially hesitant to record songs in English as it was not her first language, so Estefan offered to translate Ojos Así into English in order to show her that “it could translate well.” A Spanish version of the song, entitled Te Aviso, Te Anuncio (Tango), was also recorded by the singer.

Wanting to “find a way to express my ideas and my feelings, my day-to-day stories in English”, Shakira bought rhyming dictionaries, started analyzing the lyrics of songs by Bob Dylan, reading poetry and the work of authors like Leonard Cohen and Walt Whitman and took English lessons from a private tutor.

The music video directed by Dave Meyers

 
 

 
 

This Isn’t Everything You Are is a song by Northern Irish-Scottish alternative rock group Snow Patrol. The track is the second single from the band’s sixth studio album, Fallen Empires, it was released as a digital download on 14 October 2011.

Gary Lightbody said to The Sun: “When we’d finished that song, we were going, ‘F*** me, this could be a big song’. It’s three stories in one — each verse is a different person in my life that was going through a tough time.” “Then the chorus is about trying to explain that everything isn’t as bad as it might seem.”

In another interview, Lightbody told Billboard magazine that he wrote the song “to try to protect” the three people experiencing difficulties, adding that he wanted, “to show them that there were people there for them whenever they needed. Sometimes it’s hard to reach out, it’s hard to ask for help. It’s a recurring theme on the record.”

The radio and video edit of the song excludes the lines “Is he worth all this, is it a simple yes? / Cause if you have to think, it’s fucked / Feels like you loved him more, than he loved you / And you wish you’d never met.”

A music video to accompany the release of This Isn’t Everything You Are was first released onto YouTube on 14 October 2011 at a total length of four minutes and twenty-two seconds. It contains footage filmed in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It was directed by Brett Simon and finds Snow Patrol becoming a house band.