Édith Piaf
5 minutes
Édith Piaf (1915–1963) lived only 47 years, yet she was one of the most important French singers of the first half of the twentieth century and an enduring symbol of chanson.
Her parents separated, and Piaf grew up with her maternal grandmother, who ran a brothel. As a teenager, she sang on the streets of Belleville. In 1935, a nightclub owner recognized her talent, brought her onstage, and gave the petite, 1.42-meter-tall young singer her stage name: “La Môme Piaf,” the little sparrow. She went from street corners, pubs, and nightclubs to the great stages of Paris and New York.
Her life after fame was turbulent. She had several broken relationships with singers and other famous men. At 36, she was in a car accident and became dependent on morphine and alcohol. Her health deteriorated; she suffered tremors and collapsed onstage several times. She died of liver cancer in Grasse, France, in 1963.
Her story could fill volumes. Marion Cotillard’s film La Vie en Rose offers a portrait of Piaf’s difficult life. Her songs express a longing for love and a passion for life, carrying French chanson around the world. They are still widely sung today.
Some of her best-known songs:
- “La Vie en Rose”: one of chanson’s most widely loved and covered songs. In a lover’s arms, life seems surrounded by roses; the phrase has come to mean “a happy life.”
- “Hymne à l’amour” (“Hymn to Love”): “Let the sky fall and the earth crumble; let the sea dry up and stones turn to dust—as long as our hearts truly love each other…” The orchestration swells from a gentle opening to a powerful crescendo, moving forward like love itself, undeterred.
- “Non, je ne regrette rien” (“No, I Regret Nothing”): remember the song Joseph Gordon-Levitt uses to wake everyone in Inception? This is it. Piaf endured a hard life, but she loved and lived without regrets.