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07 Mar 06 - 02:45 PM (#1687536) Subject: Song of the Partisans...obituary From: ifor Anna Marly, who wrote the Song of the Partisans ,has died in Alaska aged 88.Her song,about the Partisans who fought the nazis from the cellars,mountains and woods of Europe became the best known resistance song to come out of the war.It was recorded by Leonard Cohen on his debut album in the late 1960s and his version brought the song to the attention of a young audience across the world.The song was subsequently recorded by Joan Baez among others. "When they poured across the border I was ordered to surrender This I could not do I took my gun and vanished..." salut Ifor |
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07 Mar 06 - 02:55 PM (#1687544) Subject: RE: Song of the Partisans...obituary From: Wolfgang Thanks for telling. I wouldn't have heard about her death without you. But your wording may give a wrong impression. Let me quote an old Malcolm post (Malcolm is usually right and always careful): The lines Deckman quotes are from The Partisan, a translation of La Complainte du Partisan, which Leonard Cohen revived back in the 1960s. It was written in 1943 by Emmanuel d'Astier de la Vignerie (known as "Bernard") with music by Anna Marly, who originally recorded it. The English translation was by Hy Zaret. Wolfgang |
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07 Mar 06 - 03:10 PM (#1687554) Subject: RE: Song of the Partisans...obituary From: Purple Foxx According to her Guardian Obituary "Song of the Partisans" was written by Marly & translated by Bernard. "La complainte d'un Partisan" was a seperate song written by Bernard. Birth guarantees Death but we seem to be losing a lot of good types all at once. Anna Marly was a woman of courage & Integrity. Such people are always a big loss. |
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07 Mar 06 - 03:22 PM (#1687568) Subject: RE: Song of the Partisans...obituary From: Wolfgang I didn't know she was born in Russia nor that her family had to flee after her aristocrat father was executed by Bolsheviks. What a life! Wolfgang |
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07 Mar 06 - 03:33 PM (#1687578) Subject: RE: Song of the Partisans...obituary From: Malcolm Douglas My information came from http://www.leonardcohensite.com/partisaneng.htm. I can't guarantee that it's 100% accurate, though Marc Gaffié's research seemed pretty thorough. His essay on the song points out that it has often been mis-attributed in part, so some confusion (if some has arisen) is not too surprising. |
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07 Mar 06 - 03:48 PM (#1687594) Subject: RE: Song of the Partisans...obituary From: Purple Foxx I merely passed on what was reported in the obituary mentioned in my first post. I can't guarantee 100% accuracy either. The obit in question was by Patrick O'Connor. |
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07 Mar 06 - 04:04 PM (#1687607) Subject: RE: Song of the Partisans...obituary From: katlaughing Thank you for posting this. We do seem to be losing too many, of late. An old friend of my father's is a WWII vet. He is 92 and has told me "they" say all of them will be gone by 2007, next year. He is healthy, has no need of any medications. His goal is to be the longest living WWII vet in history. I think he may just make it. I wish more of them and people such as Anna Marly didn't have to go. kat |
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07 Mar 06 - 06:49 PM (#1687778) Subject: RE: Song of the Partisans...obituary From: McGrath of Harlow Here's a full page obituary of Anna Marly from today's Guardian. Tuesday 7 March 2006 A few years ago, Anna Marly, the singer and songwriter associated with the best known song of the French resistance, decided to move to Alaska. She was "fed up with all the green lawns of civilisation" and wanted to find somewhere "close to wild nature". Anna, who has died aged 88, chose the small town of Lazy Mountain, where there is a Russian Orthodox church, St Tikhon, and there felt she was returning to her roots. She was born Anna Betoulinsky in St Petersburg, in the month of the Bolshevik October uprising. Her father, an aristocrat, was arrested and executed in 1918 as "an enemy of the revolution". Her Greek mother took Anna and her five-year-old sister, and travelled by cart and on foot to the Finnish border. There she bribed the guards to let them cross, using jewels that had been sewn into her clothes. The family reached France, where they settled in Menton, among a group of White Russian refugees. Even as a child Anna started to show promise as a composer, writing "many little songs". She was given lessons by Prokofiev and, at 16, spent a season as a dancer with the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo. By then an accomplished guitarist, she moved to Paris and began her career performing her own compositions. She found her first success at the Shéhérazade cabaret in the Rue de Liège, "wearing a Medieval dress". "I was a pioneer, no one sang with guitars then, there was no Elvis," she told an interviewer two years ago. Joining a composers' group, she was encouraged to find a stage name, and picked Marly by looking in the telephone directory. In 1938 she married a Dutch diplomat; after the fall of France in June 1940, they escaped via Spain and Portugal, eventually reaching London in the spring of 1941. Her husband joined the Royal Netherlands government secret service, while Anna made contact with the Free French representatives in London. She worked as a volunteer clearing bomb damage - "We were picking up arms, legs, a traumatic experience" - and in the canteen of the French servicemen's centre in Carlton Gardens. Years later she quipped that "soup and chansons" go together naturally, so she sang for the men too. Among the visitors was the resistance leader Emmanuel d'Astier de la Vigerie (code-named Bernard). Along with the writers Joseph Kessel and Maurice Druon, he heard her sing, in Russian, her Song of the Partisans. Kessel and Druon adapted the words into French, and soon Anna was invited to sing it on the BBC French Service programme Honneur et Patrie, which still got through to clandestine listeners in France. She would whistle the opening bars, which made it easier for radio-hams to pick up the song. With its opening words evoking the night-time raids - "Ami, entends-tu le vol noir des corbeaux sur nos plaines?" (Friend, do you hear the black flight of ravens over our plains?) - it became the single most famous song associated with Free French fighters and the resistance. It was recorded first by Germaine Sablon, and later by many others, including Yves Montand and Johnny Hallyday. Bernard wrote the words for another song, La Complainte d'un Partisan, which was destined eventually for worldwide fame: Personne ne m'a demandé/ D'ou je viens et ou je vais (No one has asked me where I have come from and where I am going). Joining the forces entertainment service Ensa, Anna sang in English, French, Russian and Czech. She returned to Paris in July 1945, and sang her song in front of General de Gaulle. In later years there were disagreements with Druon and Kessel, who were sometimes wrongly credited with sole authorship of the song, which was re-christened Le Chant de la Libération. But Anna's contribution was finally acknowledged, and she was made a chevalier de La Légion d'Honneur and a dame of the Knights of St John of Jerusalem. Whenever she reappeared in France, people would come with tragic and heroic tales, recalling how important the song had been in their efforts. After the war, she divorced her husband and married another Russian refugee, George Smiernow. In the 1950s they lived mostly in south America, while Anna continued to tour and write songs, including one for Edith Piaf, Une Chanson à Trois Temps. After moving to the United States, Anna became an American citizen in 1965. Four years later Leonard Cohen recorded The Partisan, which he had first heard while still a child, singing it from The People's Songbook. It became a notable success, and many other singers have taken it up, among them Joan Baez, Esther Ofarim and Isabelle Aubret. The renewed interest in Anna's work led to the publication of a book of Chants de la Résistance et de la Libération. Her autobiography, Anna Marly: Troubadour de la Résistance, appeared in 1980 and later she brought out a book of stories, Les Fables d'Anna Marly pour Rire et Réflechir de 9 à 99 Ans. In 2000 she was invited to join the service at La Madeleine to commemorate the 60th anniversary of De Gaulle's broadcast that launched the Free French army. One of the things that pleased her most later in life was the knowledge that her songs were becoming known in Russia. With her own original words, The Song of the Partisans had come back to its homeland. In her house, a light was always burning beside an icon. · Anna Marly, singer and songwriter, born October 30 1917; died February 15 2006 |
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07 Mar 06 - 08:44 PM (#1687894) Subject: RE: Song of the Partisans...obituary From: Malcolm Douglas The Guardian obituary raises further complications. The first song mentioned is not The Partisan, but another (subsequently more famous; Le chant des partisans or later, apparently, Le Chant de la Libération) and which is also referred to by Marc Gaffié (see link above). As Gaffié states, "Bernard" wrote the French words for La Complainte du Partisan (the song later recorded by Leonard Cohen and others); this is confirmed in the Guardian piece, though it doesn't say specifically that Marly wrote the music. I can see how "Purple Foxx" might have become confused by all that; the song titles are very similar, and the obit isn't as specific as it might be. Neither does Marc Gaffié mention any involvement of Anna Marly's in the song usually credited to Joseph Kessel and Maurice Druon; which Patrick O'Connor states is a translation of a song originally written by Marly in Russian. I'm getting confused, too. |
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08 Mar 06 - 05:12 AM (#1688084) Subject: RE: Song of the Partisans...obituary From: Wilfried Schaum About the authorship, English version originally in French) COMPLAINTE DU PARTISAN Les Allemands étaient chez moi On m'a dit résigne toi Mais je n'ai pas pu Et j'ai repris mon arme. D'où je viens et où je vais Vous qui le savez Effacez mon passage. J'ai changé cent fois de nom J'ai perdu femme et enfants Mais j'ai tant d'amis Et j'ai la France entière. Pour la nuit nous a cachés L¹ennemi l'a su (Les Allemands l'ont pris) Il est mort sans surprise. Hier encore nous étions trois Il ne reste plus que moi Et je tourne en rond Dans la prison des frontières. La liberté reviendra On nous oubliera Nous rentrerons dans l'ombre Paroles : Emmanuel d'Astier de La Vigerie dit "Bernard". Musique : Anna Marly écrit en 1943, à Londres. When they poured across the border I was cautioned to surrender This I could not do I took my gun and vanished. I've lost my wife and children But I have many friends And some of them are with me An old woman gave us shelter Kept us hidden in the garret Then the soldiers came She died without a whisper. I'm the only one this evening But I must go on The frontiers are my prison. Oh, the wind, the wind is blowing Through the graves the wind is blowing Freedom soon will come Then we'll come from the shadows. Ils me dirent "résigne toi" Mais je n'ai pas pu J'ai repris mon arme. J'ai changé cent fois de nom J'ai perdu femme et enfants Mais j'ai tant d'amis J'ai la France entiere. Pour la nuit nous a cachés Les Allemands l'ont pris Il est mort sans surprise. Oh, the wind, the wind is blowing Through the graves the wind is blowing Freedom soon will come Then we'll come from the shadows. Paroles : Hy Zaret, adapté d¹Emmanuel d¹Astier de la Vigerie (a.k.a. "Bernard"). Musique : Anna Marly |
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08 Mar 06 - 05:17 AM (#1688087) Subject: RE: Song of the Partisans...obituary From: Purple Foxx Thanks for the clarification. If I learn by mistakes I'm getting a fantastic education. |
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08 Mar 06 - 10:33 AM (#1688259) Subject: RE: Song of the Partisans...obituary From: jeffp My father is a WWII vet and is only 81. He's also in pretty good health. I don't believe they will all be gone next year. |
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08 Mar 06 - 11:08 AM (#1688284) Subject: RE: Song of the Partisans...obituary From: GUEST,Nicholas Waller There are still a few - less than ten - British WWI veterans, like Harry Patch from Wells, who's 107; he didn't speak of the war until he was 100 or watch a war film for 80 years. 107-year old WW2 veterans will still be around in 2034 so there are a few years to go... (having said that, my father died at 86 a couple of years ago.) |
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08 Mar 06 - 11:25 PM (#1688817) Subject: RE: Song of the Partisans...obituary From: Ron Davies The accompanying article by Marc Gaffie (accent missing) is fascinating, especially his observation about the mistranslation of the last verse. My French is not perfect by a long shot but it seems clear that "Nous rentrerons dans l'ombre" is NOT "We'll come from the shadows" but rather "We'll return to the shadows". The translation as given insists on a Hollywood ending to the song--a happy ending. It's not in fact a happy ending, and to make it so cheapens the song in my view. I was part of a small group which did a CD in Russian and Yiddish, "Rise Up And Fight!: Songs of Jewish Partisans", under the auspices of the Holocaust Museum in Washington, with Theodore Bikel and some other singers. Themes like talking to his lover, telling her "when I fall, just take another lover and my rifle and keep fighting"--truly haunting songs. |
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25 Apr 09 - 07:39 PM (#2618754) Subject: ADD: Chant des Partisans From: Joe Offer Maurice Druon died April 14, 2009. Druon translated Marly's Chant des Partisans with his uncle Joseph Kessel (1898-1979). Druon and Kessel were both better-known as novelists, but their translation of Marly's Chant des Partisans was the most popular song of the French Resistance, and was considered for adoption as the French national anthem, in place of La Marseillaise. Le Chant des Partisans:
Unofficial English Translation
Here is an English translation, which can be sung to the same tune: My friend, do you hear the dark flight of the crows over our plains? Oh, friends, do you hear, workers, farmers, in your ears alarm bells ringing? Climb up from the mine, out from hiding in the pines, all you comrades, Hey you, assassins, with your bullets and your knives, kill tonight! We are the ones who break the jail bars in two for our brothers, There are countries where people sleep without a care and lie dreaming. But here, each one knows what he wants, what he does with his choice; Tomorrow, black blood shall dry out in the sunlight on the streets. My friend, do you hear the dark flight of the crows over our plains? lyrics copied from Wikipedia |