Edith Piaf

19 December 1915- 11 October 1963

listen to one of her famous songs below:

La Vie En Rose

 This was the first song she wrote herself.

https://youtu.be/LUYvMOUW0gc

 

Piaf was born to divide opinion. Many find in her astonishing voice an echo of humanity’s helplessness in the great, pitiless void of existence. Others think she sounds like someone swallowing a cheese-grater. It doesn’t really matter, for Piaf’s real achievement was in demonstrating just how much it is possible to suffer for your art.

The Catholic Church, convinced of her fallen state, branded her “a categorical sinner” and refused to give her a funeral mass. Her coffin was carried through the streets of Paris to be buried at the ancient Père Lachaise cemetery with only a token blessing.

In 2011, in a mood of reverence and residual guilt, France stopped to consider both what Piaf suffered and achieved before dying from an impressively c It had not been possible to pay them earlier, because in death, as in life, Edith got a rough deal. The Catholic Church, convinced of her fallen state, branded her “a categorical sinner” and refused to give her a funeral mass. Her coffin was carried through the streets of Paris to be buried at the ancient Père Lachaise cemetery with only a token blessing omprehensive surfeit of ailments at the age of 47.

The same day, President François Hollande was handed a report from France’s public monuments commission suggesting that Edith be reburied in the Panthéon — the national mausoleum — alongside the likes of Voltaire and Rousseau. For hours, her earthy voice filled the capital’s airwaves and, as in the days when they trickled through the speakers of dingy bars, her songs became the soundtrack to the city.

Abandoned by her alcoholic mother, Edith was taken in by her grandmother, Acha, who ran a whorehouse in Normandy. At seven, she was reclaimed by her father, Louis, who took her travelling with his circus, and taught her the rudiments of performing.

Even at that age, her tiny frame could create an astounding amount of noise – “enough to drown out the lions” winced Louis – and by her mid-teens, she was singing in cafés and Paris boulevards.

She moved in increasingly bad company and from lover to lover. At the age of 17, she had her only child, a daughter, Cecelle, who died of meningitis aged two, According to yet another story — almost certainly untrue — she had to sleep with a stranger to pay for her child’s funeral.

Shortly before her 20th birthday, she was spotted by Louis Leplée, a nightclub owner who effectively created her as a cabaret singer, dressed her in simple black, and steered her towards a réaliste repertoire of songs about pain and heartbreak.

Here, Edith was in her element. Her fame spread, and she became first a home-grown, then an international, star.

Not that her life became any easier. In 1949, the death in a plane crash of her great love, Marcel Cerdan, a boxing champion, sent her into a spiral of alcoholism, drug use and mental breakdown, and by 1960 she had had enough, announcing her intention to retire to live quietly on the Riviera.

A few months later, however, she was lured back to work by Charles Dumont and Michel Vaucaire, two young songwriters who had composed what would become her greatest anthem, Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien.

The song, with its martial beat and message of pain, joy and defiance, was a colossal hit, which today serves as Edith’s epitaph.

Her actual last words were: “Every damn thing you do in this life, you have to pay for.” Which suggests that there might have been a few regrets after all.

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Many online sources used for this article.