Yesterday was that dreadful date, September 21st, the start of the autumn season. For the occasion let’s listen to Charles Trenet’s jazzy version of Paul Verlaine’s famous Chanson d’automne (Autumn Song). In 1944, three years after Charles Trenet’s song was first recorded, the Allies used the first lines of Verlaine’s poem to warn the French Resistance that D-Day was imminent.

Les sanglots longs
Des violons
De l’automne
Blessent (bercent) mon cœur
D’une langueur
Monotone.
Tout suffocant
Et blême, quand
Sonne l’heure,
Je me souviens
Des jours anciens
Et je pleure;
Et je m’en vais
Au vent mauvais
Qui m’emporte
Deçà, delà,
Pareil à la
Feuille morte.

What a perfect start to dig into our collection and unearth a few appropriate sheet music covers to illustrate the melancholic and languorous season.

The ultimate september song though was written (1946) by Jacques Prévert and it’s music composed by Joseph Kosma. The title was inspired by the last words of Verlaine’s poem: Les feuilles mortes. Originally, the tune was created for a ballet but later ‘remastered’ for the film of Marcel Carné Les Portes de la nuit.

Sung by many artists, the song became really notorious the moment that Yves Montand recorded it. We also know it as the worldwide jazz standard Autumn Leaves.

To close our post we selected a slightly more poppy version of the bewitching song that so bizarrely marries desolation and yearning. Bye-bye summer.

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