Edith Piaf's lost interview

Edith Piaf, by the amazing Priapo40. Check out his work : http://priapo40.deviantart.com/

The following interview was to be broadcoast on the TV show "Discorama" on the 20th January 1961. Edith Piaf talks about love and the new direction she is taking in her new album ("Olympia" at that time).

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If we take all of your songs and then put them in a book, would they be a guide, a lesson about love? 

Yes, they could be a lesson about love, that's true.

All the chapters of love are there, every stage aren't there?

Yes, everything...I think. 

There is no recipee to write a love song, it would be too easy but could you tell me what is absolutely necessary in it?

Well. I think both the composer and the songwriter have to be in love in real life. Otherwise they can't write a love song.

So the songwriter has to be in love, when you sing, are you a better singer when you are in love?

Well I have to say that I'm always in love, I never knew a moment  when I'm wasn't.

A love song has to express love completely.

Yes it does. I think that people who don't care anymore about love aren't complete. Those who stopped believing in love just because they suffered from it before aren't real lovers. 

Nothing else is comparable to what love gives you, isn't it?

Yes indeed. Even if you have a great job, a job that meets your passion. If you have nobody to share it with you, the job becomes useless. One can't be without the other.

Jacques Prevert talks about the dangerous and tender face of love. Do you share his point of view?

I think that love wears every faces.

A tender one, a hard one or a dangerous one?

Any faces it depends...It depends of the time.

In your repertoire this year, there are 8 songs from the same author, Charles Dumont.

Composer. 

Same Composer. I don't know if it is a coincidence but I think this year your songs has taken another colour, dimension. Something your previous songs didn't have before.

Yes it's true. When Charles Dumont and Michel Vaucaire brought me the first song : "Non, je ne regrette rien" ("No, I don't regret anthing") It was like a revelation to me like I had to erase everything and start anew. In Charles Dumont's songs mainly, I found what I was looking for. It was funny, the composer that helped...me to make a new start. It also helped my previous songwriters who are still writing songs for me like Michel Rivegauche who also worked along with Charles Dumont. They could write in a new path, a new direction which suits better me better than in the past.

Translated by BobbyManhattan

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