A while back, a good friend turned me onto a website called Songza. My best guess is that it is comparable to Spotify, a website that enables one to stream music from a favourite artist, and listen to playlists inspired by their sound. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong. Yesterday while browsing I came across some great French playlists and an unexpected bout of nostalgia.
My need for some Edith Piaf instantly transformed my office into an old, 1940s smokey bar repleate with Edith, Charles Trenet, Serge Gainsbourg, Lucienne Boyer and the like, however, without the actual smoke, intoxicants or people sharing their tales of woe to any sympathetic ear … other than myself, to myself as I was the only one in there at the time. I never knew how to classify this music, however, so I then … uhhh … Googled it. Torch songs or ‘Chanson’. Chanson! Did that ever bring me back.
During my first stint as an English teacher in Japan, I had a lovely student, an older woman who always wore a bucket hat, but never a bra (I was sure of it) who only bothered to sign up for classes every once in a while. At this point in her English language instruction, she had no interest in structured lessons, nor did she show any interest in applying what she had learnt over the course of her time studying English. In hindsight, I’m quite certain her staggered attendance and choice of private over group lessons (more expensive) was just a way for her to use up the package of lessons she had paid for instead of seeing them go to waste. She just wanted to have conversations, which was fine in theory, except that the word conversation according to Merriam-Webster is defined as an “oral exchange of sentiments, observations, opinions, or ideas“. Our conversations always became more like informal interviews because this adorable older lady couldn’t string a sentence or a question together to save her life (this has no bearing on my abilities as an English teacher). Or maybe she didn’t want to! Nonetheless, the only thing I could ever get out of her was that she played the flute and that she loved French ‘chanson’. Oh, her tiny, delicate voice. She was the very definition of adorable when she said “I like French chanson.”
It was a wee bit frustrating never learning much more about her but I got over that rather quickly; after a while I came to love our infrequent and informal lessons. I would show up to every class with a lesson prepared even though I knew we were never even going to touch the book. When I had learnt that she played the flute, that day’s lesson went out the door. For the duration of our time together, we chatted about the technical side of sheet music (as much as was possible) and I taught her music terminology in English – she lit up. Another reason I loved lessons with this student was because she reminded me of my maternal grandmother. Same height, roughly, same build. I always wanted to hug this woman and rub my face on her cheeks because my maternal grandmother has the softest cheeks, but I never tried because, you know, creepy.
Now every time I listen to torch songs or French chansons, I will always be reminded of this former student. Perhaps the ‘French’ in French chanson may be redundant but that’s what this student always said so it will always be ‘French chanson’ to me.
*Audible sigh 