Amazing stuff.ĭuring the war Juliette Gréco worked for the Resistance and, along with her mother and older sister, was imprisoned at the notorious Fresnes prison outside Paris. You can pick this version up on film, on YouTube. First sung by Rina Ketty in 1938 and Jean Sablon shortly after, it also got the Django Reinhardt/Stephane Grapelli treatment. "I will wait" – and people in France in 1940 had a lot of waiting to do.
One of the great classics coming from just before the war. Following an accident at the age of eighteen he only had proper use of the first two fingers of his left hand and yet he played the guitar like an angel – or perhaps a demon. The ultimate cool, first recorded in Paris in 1940, with the Quintette du Hot Club de France, Stephane Grapelli on the violin and Django playing guitar in his inimitable fashion. It was also my parents' song when they were courting. In fact it is used in the one piece of film – a short documentary about the training and mission of two SOE agents – that exists from those days. Why is it they have all the best songs? It means "I take my leave" or "I bow out" and it was popular among the men and women of the French Section of SOE. Eventually you get grown up enough to admit to them.Īnother French one. When I was a young teenager I was more passionately in love with Françoise Hardy than it is possible to imagine. Curiously in this recording the man and woman roles are reversed – this time he's leaving. A more recent version was recorded by Françoise Hardy, along with her husband Jacques Dutronc, in her 2000 album Clair Obscur. First sung by Jean Sablon and Mireille in 1935, it's this recording that is played in Trapeze – while Special Operations Executive agents are awaiting their parachute drop into occupied France in 1943. "Puisque vous partez en voyage" – Jean Sablon & MireilleĪ wonderful bitter-sweet French dialogue between him and her as she leaves on a train journey, their first separation since getting together.
It is set entirely in 1943, so has wartime music in the background although only one song is mentioned by name. My new novel, called Trapeze, will be published in May and tells the story of a women agent of the British Special Operations Executive who is trained as an agent and parachuted into occupied France to work with the resistance. In his own words, here is Simon Mawer's Book Notes music playlist for his novel, Trapeze:
Rina keytty free#
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With its lyrical yet spare prose and heart-pounding climax, this is a compelling historical thriller of the highest order." But this is primarily a masterfully crafted homage to the 53 extraordinary women of the French section of the SOE on whose actual exploits the novel is based. "Much-lauded British author Mawer vividly describes the deprivations in a war occupied country and its once-vibrant capital and provides testimony to the courage of countless members of the French Resistance. Originally published as The Girl Who Fell From The Sky in the UK, Simon Mawer's novel Trapeze is a thrilling example of literary historical fiction. Previous contributors include Bret Easton Ellis, Kate Christensen, Kevin Brockmeier, George Pelecanos, Dana Spiotta, Amy Bloom, David Peace, Myla Goldberg, Heidi Julavits, Hari Kunzru, and many others. In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.