Charles Aznavour, 1924-2018
I have to say a few words of tribute to Charles Aznavour, a singer, songwriter, performer, entertainer, actor who has been with me my entire life, a tiny little man who loomed so large in the Critchley family household. The appreciation of Monsieur Aznavour in our family goes back a long way and goes well beyond what words can say. So his death on October 1 2018 was a sad occasion.
So I’ll say it simply:
Farewell my dear friend and companion through all those lonely days and nights, and thank you for so many songs of life, sung in the richness, pain and beauty of its living. I think he did that for all who loved his songs, and they were many. He struck a universal chord.
I’m reading the very many tributes and articles giving fulsome and well deserved praise to the much-loved champion of the French chanson. I’ll just give a very personal appreciation.
‘I'm a very special character,’ Charles Aznavour once said of himself in an interview. He really is. He was still performing into his nineties. ‘I can’t see, and I can’t hear,” he said. And yet his shows remained an incredible combination of seductive, powerful, emotional singing and nippy dance steps. He moves well on his feet, nothing forced or frenetic. Aznavour was a class act. He oozes class. He’s a singer, performer, actor, writer. He has written more than 1,200 songs. That’s a lot of writing. ‘When I have a piece of paper, I write,’ he told Graham Norton in interview. ‘Je suis un artisan.’ He was an artist, an artist of life and people. “When I wrote my first songs,” he said, “everyone mistook them and said, ‘Ah, you are telling your story.’ It was not true. But after years, I found that finally – without knowing it, without trying to – I had written my life.” But he did write our lives in the process, all the same. He wrote about the universal themes that connect us all, albeit in a most personal, intimate fashion.
Despite his evident success, Aznavour speaks openly about his limitations: “My shortcomings are my voice, my height, my gestures, my lack of culture and education, my frankness and my lack of personality.” I think he oozes culture and charisma and talent. But Aznavour has always engaged in ruthless self-examination: “I wanted to know who I was. Before presenting yourself to the public, you have to know who you are. Your faults and your abilities – and often you should keep the faults, which can be very spectacular, and avoid some of the good things. Even now, I’m in search of who I am.”
Jean Cocteau said, “Before Aznavour, despair was unpopular.” To the melancholy of chanson, Aznavour brought the grit and drama of real life and people. He crafts his lyrics and performance. “When I write a song, it is as if I write a scene for a movie,” he says. “The writing is very precise. If I find one word difficult, I don’t sleep for nights until I find the right one.” He chooses his words carefully.
Charles Aznavour was disinclined to pick a favourite from the more than 1,200 songs he wrote, reasoning that ‘the last one I’ve written is always the one I think is the best.’ He never rested on his past achievements and was always looking to keep writing, creating and performing. He did, however, express a special affection for ‘La vie est faite de hazard.’ It’s one of his latter songs, from 2011, telling a tale about the whims of fortune against a breezy musical backdrop. The tune is deceptively light and catchy, the words are weighty and worth pondering at length. ‘That’s what I feel about existence,’ he explained in 2014.
La vie est faite de hasards
Le bleu se cache quelque part
Loin des nuages
Entre les nuits et les brouillards
Les jours ensoleillés sont rares et sans partage
L'enfance fait ses premiers pas
Puis la jeunesse vient et va
Elle s'envole
Rebelle elle rit aux éclats
de l'inconnu de l'au-delà comme une folle
Les jours se suivent et puis s'en vont au rythme des mois des saisons
Joyeux ou tristes
Pour les uns sonnent le tocsin
Pour d'autres s'écrit un destin plus fantaisiste
Le printemps chante alléluia puis l'automne sonne le glas de nos agapes
Si dieu nous regarde d'en haut
Rien de nos tares et défauts ne lui échappe
Que savons-nous de cet après dont les religions nous ont fait tant de mystères
C'est à genou nous ont-ils dit qu'on prépare son paradis par des prières
Plus on est proches de la fin et moins on est très sûrs de rien
Athées et croyants alors ont au moins quelque chose en commun
Et c'est le doute
La vie ets pleine d'illusions de partis pris et d'opinions sans queue ni tête
Enfin l'homme reste enchainé à des croyances à des idées mais toutes faites
Nul n'est maître de son destin ni quand prendra fin son existence
Tout est écrit tout est tracé tous nos chemins sont balisés
Bien à l'avance
La vie la vie vivez la bien c'est le trésor dont le destin nous fait l'offrande
Il faut l'aimer et la protéger
quand on la perd pas de danger qu'on nous la rende
Aussi faut-il la préserver car la détruire est un pêché
et même un crime
Mais c'est le don le plus précieux que ceux qu'on appelle les dieux nous offrent en prime
La vie est faite de hasards
Un jour on nait et l'autre on part plus misérable
Tout ce qu'on a pû amasser voler thésauriser ira au diable
A l'heure où sonnera cette heure où l'on ferme ses yeux son cur comme un vieux livre
Je le ferai avec regret quand je n'aurai plus désormais la joie de vivre
la joie de vivre
Life is made of chances, youth comes and goes, The days follow each other and then go to the rhythm of the months of the seasons, the closer we are to the end, the less sure we are of anything, both atheists and believers have doubt in common, Life is full of illusions of bias and opinions, No one is master of his destiny nor when his life will end, the treasure is life, love life and protect it, life is the most precious gift, live it, All that we have been able to hoard will go to the devil.
A l'heure où sonnera cette heure où l'on ferme ses yeux son coeur comme un vieux livre
Je le ferai avec regret quand je n'aurai plus désormais la joie de vivre
la joie de vivre
Aznavour was born in Paris in 1924 to Armenian parents fleeing Turkish persecution. His name was Shahnourh Aznavourian. He was called Charles by a maternity nurse who was unable to pronounce his name. He was drawn at an early age to chanson, the distinctively French text-based song style that combined lyric poetry, music hall, and cabaret. He began working with the pianist Pierre Roche in 1941 during the Nazi occupation of Paris. In the meantime he and his family risked their lives by hiding fellow Armenians, Jews, Russians and Communists and members of the Resistance in their apartment. His father also joined the resistance.
Aznavour’s father was Michael Aznavourian. He ran a restaurant, La Caucase, but Aznavour describes him as “a good singer, singing difficult songs.” Aznavour would maybe say the same about himself, doubting whether he has a classical voice, but he sings those difficult songs about life and its living like no-one can. Aznavour’s mother, Knar Aznavourian, was an actress. The family were rich in culture. “I was raised in the understanding of the method of Stanislavski, and knowing everything about the plays of Chekhov, and poetry – it’s fantastic to be fluent in different traditions.” And his nifty footwork doesn’t come from nowhere. At nine, Aznavour started to train as a dancer with his elder sister, Aida. He left school at 10, appearing in revue as a singer. The director asked him if he could dance, and he said he could. “He said, ‘Can you dance with the girls?’ So I put on a tutu. I was not ashamed. It was my work. For years I tried to find a picture of myself in my tutu, and when I finally found it, I was so happy.” He was singing in the nightclubs of Montparnasse by the age of 15. He formed a partnership with the pianist Pierre Roche at the age of 20, and started to write songs.
His first success as a singer came with the song ‘J’ai bu,’ about a romantic loser in the ‘roulette of life.’ The song was a hit that won the prize for best record of the year. “We started very early to win prizes. More prizes than money.”
At first, however, Aznavour’s singing attempts were met with mockery. He was small, with a scrawny body and big nose. His songs were also considered excessively frank. His singing had a keening, wild edge. He was an outsider, the ‘son of emigrants, stateless people,’ as he later described himself. In 1946, at the age of 22, Aznavour drew the attention of Edith Piaf, ever on the lookout for writers who could supply good material. He received important support from Edith Piaf. A fellow outsider with a penniless Parisian background, Piaf called herself Aznavour’s “little sister from the streets.” Piaf invited him to tour with her in the US. “She never gave me any advice. She gave advice only to the men she loved. But I knew she loved my way of writing, and that gave me confidence. And she was very funny – not like she is shown in the movies.”
Piaf gave Aznavour the confidence - and the push - to go it alone. He thus embarked on a solo career. He also wrote songs for Piaf. By the magic of modern technology, the two were brought together to duet on one of Aznavour’s songs in 1997
His performances in concert started to receive praise, his reputation grew, culminating with an acclaimed residency at the celebrated Olympia concert hall, Paris. Bob Dylan saw Charles Aznavour perform in New York in 1963: 'I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. He just blew my brains out.' More than fifty years later Charles Aznavour was still having that effect on people.
Aznavour’s breakthrough record was “Je m’voyais déjà” from 1960, a jauntily comic story of a failed singer. The same year he also played a down-on-his-luck musician in François Truffaut’s film Shoot the Pianist. He was now a film star. He used his acting skills to the full in his musical performances, employing dramatic gestures and props to emphasize his words as he sang. “I wanted to be an actor who sings, which was new at the time,” he said. Then came a series of truly great songs which would secure his reputation as supreme singer-songwriter, “Hier encore”, “La Bohème,” “Emmenez-moi,” and very many more, keeping the tradition of chanson alive and well in an era of pop, rock, rhythm and beat. He toured the world.
Aznavour’s biggest hit in the UK was “She” in 1974. I remember it well. I should. My mother played it endlessly. It is a song whose cloying arrangements and sentiments are said to reveal Aznavour’s musical weakspot — a taste for syrup. Possibly. Constant exposure must have rendered me immune. In fact, I think I have a taste for the sweet and sentimental to go with the sad. He would return time and again to the same combination. I’m just listening to the song ‘You’ that came later. I really wouldn’t dismiss the approach. There is a familiarity and reassurance about it that wins a mass audience. Purists may loathe it, but there’s often a case for sugaring the pill. Frankly, Aznavour never forgot that love was the strongest of emotions, often in its simplest forms. It should be no surprise that people loved him for it. But if we are inclined to think that made Aznavour ‘safe’, a middle of the road easy listening artist mining the familiar for all it was worth, we make a huge mistake.
What always struck me, from the time I was very young, was the extent to which this seemingly middle-of-the-road artist for middle-aged respectable people would sing about some very edgy and awkward things. One of his earliest songs was “Après L’amour,” a song which celebrates post-coital bliss. It was banned by French radio. Then there is “Comme Ils Disent,” (“What Makes a Man,” a song about the life of a gay man who performs as a strip artist at a local club. His entourage implored him not to release the song. I was always amused by the theme and the way respectable middle-aged ladies in England would listen, wondering what on Earth they made of it. “I wanted to write what nobody else was writing. I’m very open, very risky, not afraid of breaking my career because of one song. I don’t let the public force me to do what they want me to do. I force them to listen to what I have done. That’s the only way to progress, and to make the public progress.”
For ideas and inspiration he watches the news, talks and listens to people: “They tell me their problems, which can be helpful.”
Even ‘She’ denotes the man’s ambition. I have an album from the 1960s on which Aznavour recorded some of his key French songs in English. It seems a bit stiff to me, with arrangements that are very tasteful but cold. In 1974 he tried again with a lot of the same songs, resulting in "A Tapestry of Dreams," which was his breakthrough in the UK. This was when Aznavour went big in our house. My mother loved the album, so we all did. She got it to be the featured album on local Liverpool radio station, Radio City, DJ Dave Eastwood playing four tracks through the afternoon show.
Aznavour’s determination to come back and crack the English market testified to his ambition to win new audiences for his songs. He sang in multiple languages - French, English, Italian, Spanish, German, Russian, Armenian, Neapolitan – and, for all he was an authentic chansonnier of the highest order, was open-minded towards other styles of music, from jazz to pop. Aznavour writes books as well as songs: “I write two or three at the same time: when I am stuck with one I switch to the other. It’s very convenient.” Gee, I do that! His talent allied to work-ethic and ambition made for a remarkable career. What is even more remarkable is not merely his longevity but the fact that he was still adding classic songs to his catalogue. He also continued to put on shows of the highest standards to the end. “If I quit the stage, I shall die,” he said in one of his last interviews. Aznavour was one of the last of the great chansonniers. In fact, I can’t think of anyone who is left. Does Juliette Greco count? I think so. There’s no hint of nostalgia, sentiment or reaction in Aznavour: “I am very close to the young generation. I am open to all kinds of music. There are only two kinds, the good and the bad, so it’s not difficult.” He has worked with the Belgian singer-songwriter Stromae, the rapper Kery James and the EBBA award-winning singer Zaz. “I’m always open to the young generation because when I started it was so difficult. I’ll never forget that.” Only death could have removed him from the stage. And now he is gone.
Aznavour was proud of his Armenian background, the land of his parents. But it was woven into his experience of Frenchness, as inseparable as milk and coffee, as he expressed it. He was the stateless child who overcame initial rejection and failure to take his place right at the heart of France’s most cherished musical tradition. And that’s a heart that will beat forever. 'In France, poets never die’ (Macron’s tribute to Aznavour).
Charles Aznavour, one of the ‘stateless people,’ received a full state farewell, with president Emmanuel Macron lauding the son of Armenian refugees as one of the most important “faces of France.”
‘The ceremony recognised Aznavour’s grit, fiendish hard work and determination to keep knocking on doors that were so often, at the start of his career, slammed in his face. French critics had initially dismissed him as repulsively ugly, too short, with a terrible cavernous voice and dubious song titles. His stellar success in the face of adversity was part of his great appeal in France: a national loser who became a winner – someone who was able to pinpoint emotion and magnify it.’
The French poet and artist Jean Cocteau once said: “Charles’s true success comes from the fact that he sings more from his heart that from his vocal chords.”
Aznavour’s appeal is intriguing. He was immensely popular, selling over 180 million albums (our house is full of a significant percentage of that total), and was probably the biggest French singing star in the world. He was certainly the best known in America. And if you can make it there …. And yet his mainstream pop appeal is deceptively based, as he would use catchy melodies to explore despair, vulnerability, challenge taboos, express the awkwardness of love and sexuality, angst, anxiety, depression. Frankly, this could make for some decidedly uneasy listening, although my mother’s contorted attempts to explain what ‘What makes a man’ was about was one of the greatest comic performances I have ever witnessed, however inadvertent. (‘It’s about a man who dresses up in funny clothes, and then takes them off,’ as I remember).
In a career that extended more than 70 years, Aznavour recorded more than 1,200 songs, sold more than 180m records and appeared in more than 60 films. I have to keep saying ‘more than’ to indicate how big this little guy was, bigger than even the biggest numbers. He was still touring and performing to the end. And his concerts were superb. The man was quality.
There is some irony listening to President Macron’s words delivered at the pomp-filled state ceremony at Les Invalides, all very grand, with full military accompaniment singing Aznavour’s songs. I'm not at all sure it;s appropriate, although it's probably the only way the state could take measure of the man. Aznavour’s lyrics, Macron rightly said, appealed to “our secret fragility.” His words were “for millions of people a balm, a remedy, a comfort ... For so many decades, he has made our life sweeter, our tears less bitter.” I have to say that Macron’s words express Charles Aznavour’s appeal perfectly – the man, his words and music, struck a deep emotional chord.
Likening Aznavour’s literary genius to the poet Guillaume Apollinaire, Macron said: “In France, poets never die.”
Importantly, Macron hailed Aznavour as an example of how much children of immigrants and refugees can give to their adopted country. I’d put it much more strongly than that, recalling the way that Aznavour would open concerts with his song Les Emigrants in face of the rise of NF in France. “He knew that the real France was a France of welcome,” said Macron of Aznavour’s mixed heritage and embracing of French culture. “This son of immigrants, who had not studied, knew that in France … the French language was a sanctuary more sacred than any other.”
Alongside Macron, the Armenian prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, said Aznavour had given fresh momentum to Armenian pride: “He brought to life the aspirations of Armenians, and so was declared a national hero for his songs and services to Armenia.”
Fittingly for a man who was devoted to rhythm and had a genius for describing melancholy, one of the most poignant moments in the ceremony came when the silence of the vast military courtyard was broken by the steady sound of footsteps on cobbles as marchers carried his coffin draped in the French flag with a wreath in Armenian colours. His coffin was lifted away at the end to the sound of his hit song, "Emmenez-Moi," (Take Me Along).
A(nother) particular favourite song of mine is Charles Aznavour's first no. 1 hit in France, "Sur Ma Vie," from April 1956. This is a live very moving live version, without accompaniment, just the words, which are more than enough:
"I don't express myself particularly well when I talk, but when I write, words, melodies flow," Charles Aznavour told The Telegraph in 2001.
Important article here:
"Beyond his entertainment career, Aznavour has been recognized for his and his family’s heroism during World War II. His family is said to have hid Jews, communists, and those persecuted by the Nazis in their Paris home during the war. In October 2017, Aznavour and his sister Aida were presented the Raoul Wallenberg Award for their war efforts."
French president Emmanuel Macron posted a tribute to Aznavour on Twitter, as NPR notes. “Profoundly French, viscerally attached to his Armenian roots, known across the world, Charles Aznavour has accompanied the joys and pains of three generations,” Macron wrote in French. “His masterpieces, his timbre, his unique radiance will survive him for a long time.”
"A tireless writer of the song, he explores all the figures of love and humanity, often with impressive audacity. This passion for the human will never let him down, which makes him brother of all men, and interprets their hopes, their drunkenness, their fragile happiness and their vast distress. A huge artist, a strong soul."
I can’t find a source for that quote about Aznavour. But it’s right. Charles Aznavour was small of stature but a giant of culture. His songs covered the whole of life, in all of its full complexity and messiness. He made it all so accessible that many could consider him "easy listening" and mainstream. There was the odd happy song, songs celebrating love and life. But look closer. He did his best work in the depths, and he met real people there, in their secret desires and fears, their vulnerabilities and anxieties, their weaknesses and their failures, and most of all in their hopes for redemption. He loved words, and he knew words. Same with people. He was a class act. My mother would write to him wishing him a happy birthday, and, invariably, there would always be a response. We had a letter framed up on the wall back home for many years. I’m not actually sure what became of it, it may well still be around. We still have a signed photograph up in the hallway, the first picture you see when entering the house.
A lover of words, people and real life has left us. "I don't know if I'm a good singer in the classical sense," he once said. "What's more important than the beauty of a voice is its expressiveness and how someone interprets a song, fills it with life. With my songs, I've always tried to tell personal, intimate stories." He succeeded. That’s what people responded to. He struck a very human chord. I know this for a fact.
He wrote some remarkable songs, too, often sad, even despairing. His favourite was a song that he didn't write, the immense La Boheme. I love far too many of his songs to name them all. He has a song for all seasons and occasions. He was an entertainer with real charm; he always put on a great show, and people loved him for it. But, please, let's not call him "mainstream" and easy listening for all of his mass appeal - he tackled some pretty deep and awkward themes along the way. He can be a troubling listen at times, with words and themes and emotions that can cut to the raw. He would always bring us back, though, with some familiar trope, some reassurance. His songs were very personal and intimate, but he also addressed people as one, as a community, emphasising the things we have in common.
In the end, an end that was a very long time in common, his was a noble mission. There's a profoundly human quality in this tradition of song, and Charles Aznavour expressed it beautifully. At 94, he was still performing to packed houses. He'll be greatly missed. We'll say farewell, in full knowledge that his songs will be forever with us - they tackle the eternal themes. We have always rated him most highly in our house. I shall have to dig out the audiocassette of the Ed Stewart BBC Sunday show, from around 2004, when yours truly got three Charles Aznavour songs played between 5-7pm on British radio. To think that people had never heard La Boheme, and were thanking me for such a ‘beautiful’ song! Let’s give thanks where thanks are due. Admittedly, the BBC did play the English language versions of these songs ... but they are still wonderful, since Aznavour sang very well in English. He sang very well in several other languages, too. He was a supreme talent.
We'll say farewell for now, but revisit these songs for a long time to come. Charles Aznavour will be forever with us. He will continue to sing of our experiences as our lives unfold, of real life in all its richness, awkwardness, and messiness. His songs covered the full range of human emotions. He was a truly immense talent. He sung of life. He will be forever with us, in our joys, in our sorrows, in the peaks and in the troughs; he has a song for everyone, for every occasion.
Rest in Peace, Charles Aznavour, a truly great chansonnier who carried French Music and culture around the world over a period of eight decades. Those songs will live on, as immortal as the soul itself.
The photo is of some of my vinyl collection of Charles Aznavour albums. Each of those records tell a story. You'd be surprised how hard it was to come by French records. I had a lot of good fun over the years visiting the vinyl shops in Liverpool and Manchester, eager to see what delights were contained in those boxes marked "exotica" or some other odd title. It was nearly always the same ones - and few. Aznavour's "Tapestry of Dreams" from 1974 was big in Britain, so it was the one you could easily obtain. We had it from its release in '74 - my mother got it played as "artist of the week" on Dave Eastwood's Radio City, Liverpool show, complaining why the songs were not being played on all other shows and stations. ‘Probably too good,’ was one of the complaints I remember. With respect to my efforts to acquire French records, you had to just keep turning up and hoping one of the more "obscure" (French) ones made an appearance, then snap it up with glee and rush home to savour it. At length. Happy days.
I’ve been having happy-sad memories digging these albums out. We are spoiled these days, when it is fairly easy to access music on CD or on You Tube. But back in the day, not that long ago, it was a case of seeing what you could find on vinyl (and it wasn’t much). So every album I found was very much appreciated, well-played and much loved. We thought we were something because we actually had these songs in the French. People loved "Yesterday when I was young." Oh yes, that's "Hier Encore," I'd smugly say. People loved "After Loving You." Try it as "De t'avoir aimee," an absolute beauty of a song. And so on. "A Tapestry of Dreams" was big in the UK in 1974. Sublime in the English, but the songs were even better in the French originals. And we had them! When we managed to get one of these albums, we'd play it over and again, listening closely to every line, the way he phrased words and lines. Charles Aznavour is very much part of the fabric back here, in our little corner of St Helens, Merseyside. My dad is currently complaining that there isn't enough fuss being made of the formidable Monsieur Aznavour on TV and radio. I guess he no longer feels threatened by this little guy with the immense charisma and words. Formidable!
Farewell, Charles, and thank you for so many songs of life, expressed in all the richness, pain and beauty of its living. In the words of Jean Cocteau: “Charles’s true success comes from the fact that he sings more from his heart that from his vocal chords.” And the fact that he had the words that were worthy of being sung, and the very human way of expressing them. I don't want to be impressed in music and song, I want to be moved. Charles Aznavour pinpointed emotion and magnified it. Macron praised Aznavour’s lyrics, which he said appealed to “our secret fragility”. He said the singer’s words were “for millions of people a balm, a remedy, a comfort ... For so many decades, he has made our life sweeter, our tears less bitter.” That's about right.
Adieu mon ami triste, doux et sentimental et, bien sûr, les poètes ne meurent jamais, ils vivent pour toujours dans leur lieu d'origine, l'âme de l'homme. Charles Aznavour, un des apatrides, restera éternel dans le coeur de ses fans avec ses chansons.
Well worth reading from The Paris Review
A lot of people are selecting what they consider to be the essential Charles Aznavour tracks, and I think, having lived my entire life with the man’s music, I am entitled to offer my own suggestions. I could give a list of one hundred easily. But I’ll restrict myself to just ten. Some of the selections will be obvious. Rather than offer an objective view of ‘the best,’ however, I’ll just pick the ones I would always keep returning to.
OK, that's more than ten. I was working from a shortlist of one hundred and twenty, so I think I've done well to narrow it down this much.