Category: Music

Elliot-Erwill-Paris-Rain-French-Chansons

From my Jazz Repertoire: Six Favourite French Chansons

Posted on by Frances Livings
Elliot-Erwill-Paris-Rain-French-Chansons man leaping couple hugging umbrellas eifel tower tour eifel
© Elliot Erwill, Paris 1989 (100-year jubilee of the Eiffel Tower)

 

I have always loved French chansons which definitely derives from my strong affinity with the French culture – and I am not only referring to the delicious food. I was thrilled to start learning French at middle school and very excited about being able to count to ten, say bonjour, merci, oui and non after a couple of lessons. My emotional bond with French music however, developed later in junior art college, where I had a very Francophile teacher. He spent (probably) all of his holidays in France and often came to class wearing the typical black beret. So often, instead of bending our heads over books, like the children’s (and adult’s) classic Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry we were supposed to be reading at the time, he would bring his acoustic guitar and we pour our hearts into singing French chansons.

Apart from loving to sing I always felt that these songs were very special, very pensive, and always very poetic. One of my favourite lines was from the song Ma Solitude by Georges Moustaki. I thought it was just so beautifully melancholic and at the same time a clever play with words: “Non, je ne suis jamais seul / Avec ma solitude” (No, I am never alone / with my loneliness). I have, in the meantime recorded the chanson. You can read about my thoughts and inspiration here and listen to it embedded in a beautiful Spotify playlist while you read this blog post…

Years later, my mother’s second husband bought and renovated an old French farmhouse in Perigord, the southwest of France. I was very lucky to be able to spend so much time there before he sadly passed away unexpectedly. The property stood slightly elevated on a small mound and was surrounded by a beautifully soft and green, hilly landscape. It was a whitewashed house with a huge, heavy oak barn door and Bordeaux-red window shutters. A low, irregular, old mossy stone wall, next to which luscious bushes of red roses and lavender grew, semi-enclosed it. There was no telephone, internet, or TV. It was perfect for either relaxing or being creative. I wrote and sang a lot and sometimes listened to the radio, which was always very inspiring because of the large number of French chansons they played.

While searching for material and writing my own songs to continuously expand my repertoire, these French chansons have always been in the back of my mind. It wasn’t until compiling the music for my multi-lingual Ipanema Lounge project, and playing some regular gigs at some of L.A.’s best French restaurants, The Little Door, and Le Petit Paris, that they resurfaced and I started learning some of them, gradually adding more and more. So after a friend of mine asked me for the lyrics of the ones I had been singing live, I thought I would just upload them here for anyone who is interested. I have uploaded the following medley and added our recording of the songs with some background information.

1. Jardin d’Hiver

Years ago, a friend of mine compiled these lovely mixed tapes for me. One of them included a very cute and amusing song Jardin d’Hiver, written by the French-Israeli songwriter Keren Ann. Later I learned that the most well-known recording, the one I listened to over and over again from that tape, is by Henri Salvador. He was French but originally born in Guyana, and virtually an institution in France from the 1930s until his death in 2008. This song is from his 2000 comeback album, Chambre Avec Vue which he recorded at the ripe age of 83!

My recording of this song borrows from the Beguine and the Cha Cha Cha. The tempo is 126 bpm and the backing track consists of various percussion instruments (Sandro Feliciano), nylon guitar (Greg Porée), double bass, bandonéon, synthesizer string pads, and piano.

Listen to and download the song here:

Jardin d’Hiver

Je voudrais du soleil vert
Des dentelles et des théières
Des photos de bord de mer
Dans mon jardin d’hiver

Je voudrais de la lumière
Comme en Nouvelle-Angleterre
Je veux changer d’atmosphère
Dans mon jardin d’hiver

Ma robe à fleurs sous la pluie de novembre
Tes mains qui courent, je n’en peux plus de t’attendre
Les années passent, qu’il est loin l’âge tendre
Nul ne peut nous entendre

Je voudrais du Fred Astaire
Revoir un Latécoère
Je voudrais toujours te plaire
Dans mon jardin d’hiver

Je veux déjeuner par terre
Comme au long des golfes clairs
T’embrasser les yeux ouverts
Dans mon jardin d’hiver

Ma robe à fleurs sous la pluie de novembre
Tes mains qui courent, je n’en peux plus de t’attendre
Les années passent, qu’il est loin l’âge tendre
Nul ne peut nous entendre

 

2. Pour Te Plaire

The jazz song Pour Te Plaire was written in French by Maxime Le Forestier and was first released by the chanson singer Julien Clerc in 2003. It was adapted from the famous American jazz standard That’s All (Bob Haymes, Alan Brandt) that was written in 1952 and made popular by Nat King Cole. To be completely honest, I like the lyrics better in French than in English. I absolutely adore the line, “Que toujours et plus encore” which means basically for longer than forever – isn’t that romantic?

My recording of the song as a French chanson features three of Los Angeles’ most wonderful studio musicians: Greg Porée on guitar, Trey Henry on upright bass, and Jeff Colella on piano – just wait until you hear the short and sensitive, most romantic solo. Remember, this is a serious love song… Also, when we did the premix I wanted the song to have a special guitar sound. I was inspired by Jeff Buckley’s recording of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah and Paul Simon’s use of very atmospherical, spherical-sounding electric guitars. The sound credit here goes out to Greg Porée and the sound engineer Nolan Shaheed.

Stream the song here:

Pour Te Plaire

Je te donne seulement l’amour pour la vie entière,
La promesse de me trouver à tes genoux,
Aussitôt que tu m’appelles,
Rester toujours fidèle,
C’est tout. C’est tout.

Je te donne tous mes printemps, mes étés de mer,
mes automnes quand les feuilles tombent partout.
Si ce n’est pas une bonne affaire,
Je te donne tous mes hivers,
C’est tout, C’est tout.

De ces choses qu’on t’a dites pour te plaire
Ces promesses avancent pour séduire
Il y en a-t-il de meilleur que l’on puisse faire,
un amour que rien ne peut détruire.

Si tu veux savoir quoi me donner pour ma peine
Rassures-toi je ne veux presque rien du tout
Que toujours et plus encore,
Je soit la seule que tu adores,
C’est tout, c’est tout.

De ces choses qu’on t’a dites pour te plaire,
ces promesses avancent pour séduire
il y en a-t-il de meilleur que l’on puisse faire
un amour que rien ne peut détruire

Si tu veux savoir quoi me donner pour ma peine,
Rassures-toi je ne veux presque rien du tout
Que toujours et plus encore,
Je sois la seule que tu adores,
C’est tout, c’est tout.

Que toujours et plus encore,
Je sois la seule que tu adores,
C’est tout, c’est tout.

 

3. Ne Me Quitte Pas 

“Ne Me Quitte Pas” (English: “Don’t Leave Me”) is a song I frequently sing live, ideally with the full band but I haven’t recorded it yet. It was written and recorded in 1959 by the Belgian chansonnier Jacques Brel. Considered by some as Brel’s ultimate classic, this French chanson has since then been translated into over 20 different languages! Brel wrote the song after his mistress “Zizou” (Suzanne Gabriello) ended their affair. Zizou was pregnant with Brel’s child but Brel refused to acknowledge it as his own which resulted in her having an abortion.

The lyrics “Moi, je t’offrirai des perles de pluie venues de pays où il ne pleut pas” (“I’m offering you rain pearls from countries where it does not rain”) are sung to a theme that Brel borrowed from the second part, Lassan (Andante), of the Hungarian Rhapsody No. 6 by the composer Franz Liszt.

For me, as a woman, it has an overly dramatic component in which the man is persuasive and almost intrusive. Sting’s hit song Every Breath You Take speaks similarly of an obsession to the extent of stalking someone (“I’ll be watching you…”). Sting’s lyrics however are void of any romantic or poetic, high-flying promises. Unlike Brel who makes offerings or maybe bribes like rain made of pearls or light and gold to cover her body; he will be king, she will be queen in a world ruled with love… The French film “Le Chambre Bleue” (2014) deals with the topic of love in a similar way. Its female protagonist reminded me very much of the obsessive character (Brel) of this song.

To lift the slightly triste and melodramatic atmosphere of the song, I like playing it live as a teasing Tango –

Ne Me Quitte Pas

Ne me quitte pas
Il faut oublier
Tout peut s’oublier
Qui s’enfuit déjà
Oublier le temps
Des malentendus –
et le temps perdu
A savoir comment
Oublier ces heures
Qui tuaient parfois
A coups de pourquoi
Le cœur du bonheur

Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas

Moi je t’offrirai
Des perles de pluie
Venues de pays
Où – il ne pleut pas
Je creuserai la terre
Jusqu’après ma mort
Pour couvrir ton corps
D’or et de (la) lumière
Je ferai un domaine
Où l’amour sera roi
Où l’amour sera loi
Où tu seras reine

Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas !

Ne me quitte pas
Je t’inventerai
Des mots insensés
Que tu comprendras
Je te parlerai
De ces amants là
Qui ont vu deux fois
Leurs coeurs s’embraser
Je te racont’rai
L’histoire de ce roi
Mort de n’avoir pas
Pu te rencontrer

Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas

On a vu souvent
Rejaillir le feu
De l’ancien volcan
Qu’on croyait trop vieux
Il est paraît-il
Des terres brûlées
Donnant plus de blé
Qu’un meilleur Avril
Et quand vient le soir
Pour qu’un ciel flamboie
Le rouge et le noir
Ne s’épousent-ils pas?

Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas

Ne me quitte pas
Je ne vais plus pleurer
Je ne vais plus parler
Je me cacherai là
A te regarder
Danser, danser!
Et à t’écouter
Chanter et puis rire
Laisse-moi devenir
L’ombre de ton ombre
L’ombre de ta main
L’ombre de ton chien

Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas

Ne me quitte pas !

 

4. Dansez Maintenant

This song was originally composed by Glen Miller as the theme for his orchestra and is usually known with English lyrics as Moonlight Serenade. I recorded it as a swung ballad with French lyrics. The track is very true to how it would have been performed in the 1940s. It’s such a cheerful tune about the summer holidays. The tempo is 90 BPM and is backed by electric piano, double bass, electric guitar, and a brushed snare. It is frequently one of my most popular tunes on Spotify.

Listen to and download the song here:

Dansez Maintenant

Dansez maintenant,
tout l’été les pieds nus dans le sable
Dansez maintenant
Et jetez vos ennuis dans les vagues
Qui dansent, balancent, au gré du vent sale

Dansez maintenant
Tout l’été aimez-vous sur le sable
Dansez maintenant
Tout l’été vous serez des cigales
Qui dansent, balancent, au gré du vent léger

Quand l’hiver sera venu vous
prendre au dépourvu
Vous danserez main dans la main
En attendant l’été prochain

Dansez maintenant
Tout l’été aimez-vous sur le sable
Dansez maintenant
Tout l’été vous serez des cigales
Qui dansent, balancent, au gré du vent léger

Quand l’hiver sera venu vous
prendre au dépourvu
Vous danserez main dans la main
En attendant l’été prochain

Dansez maintenant
Tout l’été les pieds nus dans le sable
Dansez maintenant
Et jetez vos ennuis dans les vagues
Qui dansent, balancent, au gré du vent salé

 

5. Caravane – in French?

Caravan (Caravane) is a jazz standard composed by Juan Tizol and Duke Ellington and was first performed by Ellington in 1936. Irving Mills wrote lyrics that were, however, seldomly performed. It is more known as an instrumental. Its exotic sound interested musicians; Martin Denny, Arthur Lyman, and Gordon Jenkins all covered it.

The French lyrics were written by the chansonnier Philippe Elan and first recorded in 2007 by the Dutch jazz artist Laura Fygi. I haven’t made a recording yet but am burning to…! It’s a great song to play even in a trio.

Woody Allen used the song in two of his films, Alice and Sweet and Lowdown. The song is also heavily featured in the 2014 film Whiplash as an important plot element. The Mills Brothers recorded an acappella version, making the instruments’ sounds with their voices, and Johnny Mathis recorded the song in 1956. There are more than 350 recordings of this song by Duke Ellington’s orchestra, the great majority of them now in the public domain.

Caravane

Nuit – s’aimer d’étoiles
Qui pris si fort
Le mystère de reflet d’or
Aimer de notre caravane

D’or – sur mon épaule
Tout en rampon
Dans le vent le sable mouvant
Souvenir de notre caravane

Tout semble possible
Tu es irrésistible
Blotti dans mes bras
Je subi
Ton mystérieux charme

Oh, toi,
Si près de moi,
Sous le ciel roi
Mon rêve se réalisera
Au cœur de notre caravane

 

6. The Ultimate French Chanson: Ma Solitude

The writer of this poetic piece, the ultimate French chanson, is Georges Moustaki, an Egyptian-born French singer-songwriter who became famed for his repertoire of simple romantic ballads. In his obituary in 2013, The Irish Times called him a “troubadour of love, tenderness and anti-racism [who] gave France some of its best-loved music.” Ma Solitude was first recorded in 1967 by the Italian-born French singer and actor Serge Reggiani. Two years later, in 1969, Moustaki released it himself. His version has been so far the most popular one. Read about what inspired me to record this beautiful ballad here.

Listen to and download the song here:


Ma solitude

Pour avoir si souvent dormi
Avec ma solitude
Je m’en suis faite presque une amie
Une douce habitude

Elle ne me quitte pas d’un pas
Fidèle comme une ombre
Elle m’a suivi çà et là
Aux quatre coins du monde

Non, je ne suis jamais seul
Avec ma solitude

Quand elle est au creux de mon lit
Elle prend toute la place
Et nous passons de longues nuits
Tous les deux face à face

Je ne sais vraiment pas jusqu’où
Ira cette complice
Faudra-t-il que j’y prenne goût
Ou, que je réagisse ?

Non, je ne suis jamais seul
Avec ma solitude

Par elle, j’ai autant appris
Que j’ai versé de larmes
Si parfois je la répudie
Jamais elle ne désarme

Et, si je préférais l’amour
D’une autre courtisane
Elle sera à mon dernier jour
Ma dernière compagne

Non, je ne suis jamais seul
Avec ma solitude
Non, je ne suis jamais seul
Avec ma solitude

English translation:

My Solitude

After having slept so often
with my loneliness
I have almost made it to my friend
like a sweet habit

She doesn’t leave my side
Faithful like a shadow
She has followed me here and there
to all four corners of the world

No I’m never alone
With my loneliness

When she’s in the crater of my bed
She takes up all the space
And we spend long nights together
Both of us, face to face

I really don’t know how far it will go
with this accomplice
Will I have to take a fancy
Or will I react?

No I’m never alone
With my loneliness

Through her, I have learned so much
that I have cried tears
If sometimes I reject that
She never disarms me

And If I preferred the love
of another courtesan
She will be on my last day,
My last companion

No I’m never alone
With my loneliness
No I’m never alone
With my loneliness

Did you enjoy this post? If so, why not…

 

For some more French chansons sung by female artists, follow me on Spotify and subscribe to my playlist!

…merci et à bientôt!kiss_small

Frances Livings’ Ipanema Lounge ~ New Album Out Soon!

Posted on by Frances Livings

Ipanema-Lounge-Project_550px

Frances Livings’ Ipanema Lounge

I am very excited to announce that we have almost finished recording a new 12-song world jazz album called “Ipanema Lounge”. The songs range from dramatic and emotional, melancholic, to up-tempo, fun and groovy. Atmospherically, the recordings create a blend of Southern European sounding music and Latin jazz – I have not only sung in English but also in French, Spanish and Portuguese.

Co-produced with the guitarist, arranger, composer and producer Greg Porée, I feel very fortunate that we have been able to attract not only the best musicians in Los Angeles but also a great diversity. Please look at a list of the credits down below. We are hoping to have the album mixed and completed as a physical CD by the end of May 2015. I will be presenting the demo album at the internationally attended Jazzahead conference in Bremen, Germany this April 2015 to gain some support with booking, management and promotion.

Ipanema Lounge has grown as a project in an interesting way over the last few months. The project evolved from being a tribute to Antônio Carlos Jobim to becoming a repertoire of very unique and interesting, international songs. Originally, Greg Porée and I were seeking for some music that would allow us to perform together. Greg’s music is instrumental and guitar-oriented and mine is more piano based and rarely features the guitar. So I started searching for songs that would not only feature both the voice and the classical guitar but also represent some kind of special theme.

Suddenly I found myself emerged in a lot of music in foreign languages. For reasons I cannot explain, I felt very connected to songs in these romance languages, to their different sounds and colourings. This suddenly – being the word and language lover I am – became another new and exciting avenue to explore. One of the best compliments I recently received after one of our shows was someone saying that she had felt transported to all these different countries, as if she had just been on holiday.

Some of these songs were new discoveries but others I have been cherishing now for quite a long time. Like “La Puerta”, one of my all time favourite ballads. It was originally written by the Mexican songwriter Luis Demetrio (1931-2007) and made popular in Europe by the Dutch singer Laura Fygi. I later discovered that Demetrio co-wrote another favourite song of mine, “Sway” with the bandleader Pablo Beltran Ruiz (1915-2008) which is also on the album, half in English and half in Spanish. The English lyrics are by Norman Gimbel who became famous through his English lyrics of “The Girl From Ipanema”, an Antônio Carlos Jobim song I also sometimes sing live.

Greg Porée, who has worked for countless international artists, was also the lead guitarist in the orchestra of the BBC hit show Dancing with the Stars for eight years. The repertoire ranged from rap to classical. Greg’s spectrum of musicality therefore stems from so many areas. Live and on these recordings he delivers not only the harmonious tones of the classical guitar but also the inventive arrangements and creative grooves that make the recordings so unique. Our recording of the famous Jobim song, Waters of March stands in a way for Greg’s inventiveness. By creating a harp-like arpeggiated guitar figure, the notion of a flowing river was created.

I am a jazz vocalist with a background in pop, electronica and nujazz. It was therefore natural for both Greg and me to applied a creative fusion-approach with soul and pop influences to the songs. The infectious grooves on the fun and up-tempo songs, like Sway and Aganjú, are typical for Latin jazz and is very much coined by our drummer and percussionist. This world-jazz approach has already garnered us in Los Angeles a loyal audience of both jazz enthusiasts and those who have never considered themselves jazz fans.

Credits:

Frances Livings – vocals

Greg Porée – guitar

Jeff Colella – piano & keyboards

Darrell Diaz – keyboards

Trey Henry – upright bass

Isaias Elpes – electric bass

Joe Ayoub – upright bass

Joey Heredia – drums & percussion

Sandro Feliciano – percussion

Nolan Shaheed – trumpet

Mariano Dugatkin – bandoneon

Recorded at Nolan Shaheed’s in Pasadena, produced by Frances Livings & Greg Porée 2015

The Ipanema Lounge project gives you the sweet sounds of Brazilian music that are sure to please. ~ Paul Anderson, KJAZZ 91.5 

Wonderful Review of “The World I Am Livings In”

Posted on by Frances Livings

The World I am Livings In

Frances Livings

Moontraxx Records – MXFL2013-014

Available from Frances Livings’s Bandcamp page.

A review written for the Folk & Acoustic Music Exchange
by Mark S. Tucker
(progdawg@hotmail.com)

Following the release of a half-dozen singles and EPs, Frances Livings has published her first long-form CD, The World I am Livings In (clever title!), and her voice is mindful of Martha Velez, Carole King, and Helen Reddy with a bit of Rita Coolidge and Elkie Brooks thrown in, but her milieu is much closer to Lisa Kirchner’s Umbrellas in Mint (here) in that it’s an unusual blend of the cabaretic, folk moderne, surreal (the earthy lyrics in Eating the Darkness alone are on par with Dory Previn), classically oriented jazz, and then that odd twilight world that in recent generations has spelled a whole new landscape of sonic delights I firmly aver presages an onrushing era unlike any antecedents.

What first really caught my brainworks in the disc was I’ll be Leaving Soon, a dark-ish pensée executed in semi-stream-of-consciousness illuminated by beautifully understated chamber strains (arranged by Livings’ husband Greg Poree) exalting a weary soul encanting verses of departure and hopeful renewal. Think of William Lyall or the Penguin Cafe Orchestra sitting in, but it’s really Livings’ writing that’s entrancing, and she penned almost everything on the CD, then chose some really good sessioneers, including Jeff Colella, whose piano work is a central aural motif, along with several superb strings-raspers.

More than anything, The World comes across as a half-lit stage presentation for post-Beat hipsters grown weary of all the blare and squall of an overdriven mainstream, looking for literate but unorthodox fare and a chance to once again think while immersing in moody atmospherics. Not coincidentally, then, the smirking satire of comedienne Sara Bernhard finds its way into the mix here and there, beefing up the outside-the-box metier all the more. Poree jumps into the mix again, this time with a well blended guitar, and scenes miasmically shift and flow as the twisting narrative wends its path, but the inclusion of the 1:19Pebbles in my Hand was a piece of brilliance, and I’m damned if I can quite figure out why—though it’s probably the track’s status as a rarely found act of interscript between movements. Ya just can’t locate that in music any more, y’all. In sum, this is actually more a piece of art than it is music, but of an ilk belonging with Carla Bley, Annette Peacock, and of course the aforementioned Kirchner, among others, including Janis Ian at her best; thus, don’t do anything else once you’ve tossed the disc on, or you’ll miss more than you ever guessed was there.

Track List:

  • Don’t Ask Me If I Miss You
  • When Love Falls Apart (Greg Poree)
  • It Will Never Be the Same
  • I’ll Be Leaving Soon
  • Eating and Darkness
  • Pebbles in My Hand
  • White Angel’s Café
  • True Colors (Steinberg / Kelly)
  • Candy’s Caravan
  • Lonely in the Night
  • Only Time Will Tell
  • Please Close Your Eyes
All songs written by Frances Livings except as noted.

Edited by: David N. Pyles
(dnpyles@acousticmusic.com)
Copyright 2013, Peterborough Folk Music Society.
This review may be reprinted with prior permission and attribution.

Donating = Loving

Please support the arts! You can purchase my music and spoken word – which I hope you will. If you find joy and inspiration in my words, and would like to provide additional support, please be lovely and consider a donation of your choosing – from anywhere between a coffee and a nice dinner. It will be deeply appreciated.

True Colors

Posted on by Frances Livings

Don’t be afraid to let them show, your true colors, true colors are beautiful, like a rainbow…  

~ Billy Steinberg

The song True Colors has always had a strong meaning for me. I recorded it for my album, The World I am Livings In as a symbol of hope. It was made famous by the American pop artist Cyndi Lauper and topped the billboard in 1986. True Colors is the only cover song on my new album that plays like a book of twelve musical short stories. Many tell of loss but they all depict the strength of the human spirit. It was written by the American songwriter Billy Steinberg and Tim Kelly, who also wrote one of Madonna’s first hit songs Like A Virgin.

True Colors was both the title track and the first single released from Cyndi Lauper’s second solo album. The song has been covered by many artists like Phil Collins, whose 1998 version was released as a single and became very popular on Adult Contemporary radio stations. Over twenty years later, the title has almost become synonymous for looking beneath the surface of a person’s appearance, standing for a prejudice free world. In 2007, Lauper launched the True Colors Tour in an effort to support gay rights and fight hate crimes.

Billy Steinberg originally wrote True Colors about his own mother. He originally had a verse and a chorus lyric you can read in an article here. Tom Kelly altered the first verse and the duo submitted the song to Cyndi Lauper. Their demo was in a form of piano based gospel ballad like “Bridge over Troubled Water”. Steinberg told Songfacts that “Cyndi completely dismantled that sort of traditional arrangement and came up with something that was breathtaking and stark.”

Atmospherically, I wanted my interpretation to possess a tranquil but flowing quality which is why I tried to sing as effortlessly and soothingly as possible but still achieve some tension. The atmosphere for the recording is set up at the beginning with a trip hop cajon groove supporting a hypnotic, arpeggiated classical guitar. This approach carries through the entire recording creating somewhat of a dreamy lounge feel. Musically, my version is more influenced by European nu-jazz than synth pop. The instrumentation is classical guitar, electric guitar, electric bass, cajon, electric piano and synth pads.

Unluckily, like many of you, I have encountered hurtful prejudice and loss in my life. Always remember that it is especially necessary in those times to surround yourself with people who are empathetic with whatever struggles you might have to endure – like written in one of the opening lines, “don’t be discouraged, oh I realize…”. And later in a line Cindi Lauper actually slightly altered: “If this world makes you crazy and you’ve taken all you can bear / Call me up, because you know I’ll be there…”

I hope you connect with it!

You can also follow this playlist with songs of love & hope on Spotify:

Donating = Loving

Please support the arts! You can purchase my music and spoken word – which I hope you will. And if you find joy and inspiration in my words, and would like to provide additional support, please be lovely and consider a donation of your choosing – from anywhere between a coffee and a nice dinner. I will  deeply appreciate it.

Franz Marc In the Rain 1012 Painting Lenbachhaus Waters of March

Waters of March and the Circle of Life

Posted on by Frances Livings

Zur deutschen Version hier klicken:

Franz Marc John Constable Rain Storm Score Tom Jobim

 

Waters of March is a magical, world-famous Brazilian jazz song, written by Antônio Carlos Jobim. The very first time I performed it live was at a Sunday show in Los Angeles. I was nervous. It’s one of these songs you know you have to connect with as a musician. Otherwise the audience won’t stay with you. Besides, it’s such a famous song, you almost have the obligation to take listeners on a musical and emotional journey. So whether live or in the studio – and this is valid for all songs – the challenge lies in finding and interpreting the essence of that specific song. And yes, sometimes we succeed, sometimes we don’t. Interestingly, at my debut of Waters of March not only I, but the whole band connected with it.

Moreover, it took me on a journey, on a quite unexpected journey

– into the deep waters of March!

I’ll go back a bit: Waters of March (in Portuguese, Águas de Março) had been a song request from a friend and jazz lover after attending a prior show of mine. Like other songs in my repertoire, it was written by the Brazilian songwriter Antônio Carlos Jobim. My friend handed me a CD, so on my next early morning dog walk, I listened to the enticing version he had given me a copy of. I indulged into delightful notes by no one less than Art Garfunkel – a recording on his 1975 album Breakaway. During the course of the next few days, I dug up and listened to many others, like the original by Jobim and by contemporary female jazz artists like Cassandra Wilson. I immediately loved the flow of the song in combination with such interesting lyrics. He was right. It was a perfect fit for Ipanema Lounge, a musical band project I had founded and later the title of my 2016 album. After all, I had been originally inspired by Jobim – which is why the word Ipanema – from his biggest hit song, The Girl From Ipanema – is in the title. I decided to yet again look deeper into Jobim’s catalogue and to play with some of the songs.

Waters of March in Five Languages

Águas de Março was first released in 1972. Jobim wrote the original lyrics in Brazilian Portuguese and a second version a year later in English. Then, in 1973, another favourite songwriter of mine, the Egyptian-French troubador Georges Moustaki, released a recording. It was titled Les Eaux de Mars with French lyrics that he had penned. An Italian version, La Pioggia di Marzo followed in the same year written by Giorgio Calabrese, an Italian songwriter and frequent collaborator with French pop star Charles Aznavour. Many years later, in 2007, a further adaptation called Solen i maj was written in Swedish by Anders Lundin. The Spanish-French singer-songwriter Sole Giménez penned a version in Spanish in 2009, titled Aguas de marzo.

Waters of March – All Time Best Brazilian Song

Almost 30 years after Jobim had written Waters of March, Brazil’s leading daily newspaper, Folha de São Paulo conducted a poll including more than 200 Brazilian journalists, musicians and other artists. In 2001 Waters of March was named the all-time best Brazilian song. The lasting effects of Águas de Março is also discussed in The Atlantic, including suggestions, comments and videos from many readers. Listening to many of these versions I once again understood that it was a very magical and philosophical song. But the more I listened, the more impossible it seemed to memorize the lyrics for a live performance…

For Jobim Songwriting Was Like Psychotherapy

The words of none of the versions – whether in English, Portuguese or French – are constructed to create a logical narrative. There are no recognizable stanza patterns or traceable rhymes either. The lyrics consist of strings of free associations, of singular objects broken out of their original context and then assembled to a collage – moreover, since they are in motion, literally, figuratively and musically, it’s really a montage. It was not unusual for Jobim to write in this kind of stream of consciousness. The composer-guitarist Oscar Castro-Neves recalled that Jobim had told him, that was his version of therapy, which had saved him thousands in psychoanalysis bills. It had indeed been the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud who, at the end of the 19th century, had developed the technique of “free association” as a clinical method for his patients undergoing psychoanalysis.

Waters of March et l’objects trouvés

Pablo Picasso 1942 Bull's head bicycle seat handle bars metal wielded art
Pablo Picasso Tête de taureau (Bull’s Head) 1942, Musée Picasso, Paris

In the song nearly every line starts in Portuguese with “É…” (“[It] is…”) and in English with “a”. “It” is a stick, a stone, a sliver of glass, a scratch, a cliff, a knot in the wood, a fish, a pin, the end of the road, and many other things. This technique of listing trivial objects reminds me very much of the art movement “l’objects trouvés”, originally founded by Pablo Picasso and Marcel Duchamp. As early as 1912, Picasso began to incorporate actual pieces of newspapers and other domestic items like matchboxes into his cubist collages. The word collage is derived from the French tern coller (to glue or stick together), resulting in an assemblage. Other artists like Kurt Schwitters, Georges Braque and Hannah Höch also utilized this technique, depicting wine glasses, bottles, cups and calling cards.

Aside from painting these objects – or even using photographs – another tendency was to make cubist constructions from various scavenged materials. Most famously introduced by Duchamp’s “Ready Mades“. These are individual objects, sometimes slightly modified and presented as art. His most well-known piece is Fountain (1917), a standard urinal purchased from a hardware store and displayed on a pedestal. Thus, by “simply choosing the object (or objects) and repositioning or joining, titling and signing it, the found object became art.” This was a technique Picasso  also used in 1942: Tête de taureau (Bull’s Head), consits of only two parts, a bicycle seat and handlebars, which were wielded together.

Found Sounds – or musique concrète

In music, “Found Sounds” follows the same principle, whereby domestic sounds from the world around us are used. It can be anything, like a ball hitting the floor, a machine motor running or a lift door opening and closing. It was created in the 1940s, by a group of avant-garde French composers, who named it musique concrète (concrete music). In 1948 the French composer, writer, broadcaster, engineer, musicologist and acoustician Pierre Schaeffer composed the piece Etudes aux chemins de fer, which is constructed entirely from sounds found at a train station. The piece is like a musical collage, featuring train whistles and the sound of steam engines clattering along a track. With digital methods available nowadays, this technique is now called sampling as in the musician taking an electronic sample of another recording and using it in their work. 

In Waters of March it is the environment, which is dissembled by the storm. The gushing waters, deliver these fragments and debris in the form of words.

The Influence of Poetry in Jobim’s Songwriting

The song lyrics also made me think of one of the 20th century’s most prominent poems, The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot from 1922. Not only is the poem’s form similarly obscure and untraditional – The Waste Land has many shifts in speaker, location and time – but especially the famous first line, “April is the cruelest month” easily conjures up Jobim’s seemingly unusual depiction of March as a destructive and cruel time. The influence of a renowned writer is not surprising, since Jobim was an avid reader of poetry by authors like Rimbaud, Baudelaire, Bandeira and Eliot, many of whose poems he could recite by heart.

The Influence of Weather on Songwriting

It is not unusual for songwriters to use weather conditions in songs. Rain is an especially popular topic, whether in the song Singing in the Rain, which was also a romantic comedy, or the smash hit It’s Raining Men. In the Southern hemisphere, March is the rainiest month of the year, which was Jobim’s initial inspiration for Águas de Março. He is said to have been travelling to his family rancho in Rio de Janeiro state, when a heavy rainstorm turned the roads and landscape to mud, which is also one of the lines in the song, “It’s the mud, it’s the mud…”. In Brazil, March represents the end of summer and the beginning of the colder season. In an article titled “Brazil: Waters of March“, the author, a foreign correspondent for the Al Jazeera media network, describes the rain like in the following:

“It hasn’t been raining more than 10 minutes when streets begin to flood. Thick and murky, it falls in corrugated sheets. Water. So coarse it’s opaque. Nothing but grey. And brown. And more grey. It’s March in Rio.”

Especially in the state of Rio de Janeiro, the weather is typically marked by sudden storms with heavy rains and strong winds. The soil is often too dry to soak up all of the water from the rain and flash floods occur. Violent flooding and landslides in many places around the city, not only destruct land and property but sometimes even kills people. The lyrics of the Portuguese version therefore also reflect this loss and destruction.

The Rite of Spring

This destructive interpretation of spring, reminds me of another groundbreaking piece: Igor Stravinski’s famous ballet and orchestral concert work from 1913, The Rite of Spring, which was so challenging at its time that it famously caused a riot at its première. It was in a similar way a piece of work with no specific plot or narrative, consisting of a succession of choreographed episodes. Stravinsky himself described The Rite of Spring as “a musical-choreographic work, [representing] pagan Russia […] unified by a single idea: the mystery and great surge of the creative power of Spring”.

The English Lyrics

For the English version, Jobim – whose music was already being played around the world by the early 60’s – changed a few elements. His goal was to provide a more life-affirming and universal perspective : He intentionally omitted specific references to Brazilian culture (festa da cumeeira, garrafa de cana), to its flora (peroba do campo) and folklore (Matita Pereira). So consciously holding a listener from the Northern hemisphere in mind, he depicted March as the month which marks the beginning of spring, an awakening. The waters are now instead from melting snow, from thawing, and not from the torrential rains as referred to in the Portuguese original.

Although both versions speak of “the promise of life”, the English one allows for these other, more positive interpretations with additional phrases like “the joy in your heart” and the “promise of spring”, a seasonal reference that would per se, be more relevant to most of the English-speaking world.

Shephard Tones

Both the lyrics and the music have a constant downward progression much like the water torrent from those rains flowing in the gutters, which would typically carry sticks, stones, bits of glass, and almost everything and anything. The orchestration creates the illusion of the constant descending of notes much like Shepard tones – an illusion that does in sound, what the old-fashioned barbershop pole does visually, just the other way around, that means, it seems to be rising forever.

Original, handwritten score of Waters of March by Antonio Carlos Jobim

Looking at an original score by Jobim, it becomes apparent that he was meticulous about the voicing, whereas many composers notate the chord symbols and melody, leaving the interpretation and therefore the voicing to the musician.

My Interpretation of the Song

Shortly before my first performance of the song, I was actually quite nervous. I wanted to do the song justice by being able to convey these sliding kaleidoscope images both lyrically and musically. I also wanted to be able to transport the ambivalence between tension and flow without over dramatization. Waters of March I think is a challenge for every vocalist. Who wants to sound too monotonous when listing these seemingly endless and disconnected objects? Because what matters is not so much the meaning of the individual words. According to the psychoanalyst Freud, their meaning varies in all of us anyway. It was rather, more about the sounds they create when put together in context with the music.

My musical director and guitarist, Greg Porée and I, had worked on our own arrangement of the song. So if you listen to the recording you will hear that the guitar starts with a very unique lick. Then the piano sets in. Riding on the groove of bass and percussion, I then start singing these strings of words. And that’s exactly how it was live. Very soon, I felt the emotion building up inside me. I felt in anticipation of something wonderous. I felt excited and suddenly realized, I had understood the universal meaning of the song!

Whether in Portuguese or English, streaming through me were all of these “things”, a stick, a stone, a sliver of glass. I was channeling metaphors and symbols of life flowing by in never ending new constellations, each one laden with its own history. Like in the line, “and the river bank talks of the waters of March”, that serves as a metaphor for events in the past and promises of things to come. Suddenly, to me even the English version didn’t feel like a calm stream just flowing along – but like a torrent.

In a similar way to Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, even the English version wasn’t pastoral; a Beethoven or Schubert idea of spring, but an explosive one. Hence, without pain there is no joy. Without destruction there is no beginning. Whether it is the end of a cycle or the beginning of one, a cycle means life: No matter which way around, a beginning implies an end and an end implies a beginning of something new that will inevitably come. These were metaphors for events and situations that are chaotic, surprising, sometimes devastating. It made me feel very alive and that for me in that very moment was “the joy in my heart”.

Listen to my recording of Waters of March here…

*

UPDATE a few years later, on Saturday, September 10, 2016:

Since I first wrote this blog post, in 2013, I have performed Waters of March at many different venues, with different musicians and in different moods. What strikes me is that more and more, it has become this magical song that acts like a dream catcher, moreover, a poetic facilitator of a news bulletin. Like shortly after the Boston Marathon attacks happened in 2013. I almost choked while singing the lines, “The foot, the ground, the flesh and the bone, the beat of the road, a sling-shot stone…” There have been and probably still will be many stories whose journeys I will be taken on. There will be sceneries I will be enticed to visit because of this song’s associative contents and its permanent poetic state of flux, which is lastly what makes this song such a timeless classic.

*

For those of you who love these Brazilian jazz and Bossa Nova classics, here’s a whole playlist, including lots of different variations of Águas De Março / Waters of March:

Oil painting by John Constable, Rain storm over the sea (Seascape Study with Rain Cloud) circa 1827
John Constable Rainstorm over the Sea, circa 1824-1828
Franz Marc In the Rain 1912 Fauvism Blauer Reiter Lenbachhaus
Franz Marc, In the Rain, 1912

 

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songwriting when love falls apart melancholy female jazz songwriters mp3

When Love Falls Apart ~ The Beauty of Melancholy

Posted on by Frances Livings

Songwriting about something painful can be cathartic but it also means revisiting pain. After the initial spark for the song When Love Falls Apart, it felt odd, even paradoxical, to want to write something beautiful about something so sad. Which is, however, ultimately, what melancholy is all about and that was the core emotion I wanted to express. After all, When Love Falls apart is about a break-up, which was very difficult and painful at the time. To this date, the song is still very emotional for me to sing. It can be like being transported back in time. So writing the song became quite a process.

A poet is a nightingale who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds.  ― Percy Bysshe Shelley

 

How Co-writing Can Be A Way To Unburden Pain

I had almost completed the lyrics. I had a hook and was pleased with my melody for the chorus. But the verses were still incomplete. I was obviously procrastinating, trying to avoid getting in too deep. That’s exactly why I needed some support, some structure to build on. I needed to unburden myself from some of the pain. So I asked the classical guitarist and jazz composer Greg Porée for help.

Greg came up with some lovely additional chords. So using them as a base to lean upon, I wrote the rest of the melody. Rather, it then just wrote itself. Suddenly, the song was finished. Ironically, however, the song marked both an end and a beginning: “When Love Falls Apart” was the very first song Greg and I wrote together.

The next step was therefore to notate everything in a chart. Here’s a copy of the original:

songwriting when love falls apart melancholy female jazz songwriters mp3

The Magic of Handwritten Charts

Handwritten charts are per se something very personal and are frequently of sentimental value for songwriters. I always keep an original, handwritten manuscript of all of my songs, whether it’s one by a co-writer or one of my own. It’s like keeping a baby picture of your child although it’s already grown up. For me, a song has “grown up” when it has been professionally recorded. Once the song is on Spotify or iTunes that kid has basically moved out and has started a life of its own.

 

Collections of Music Scores and Charts

If you’re interested in music notation, I found a lovely visual collection of other composers’ music scores. The Morgan Library & Museum in New York houses one of the finest collections of music manuscripts in the United States. In addition to a large collection of musicians’ letters and first editions of scores and librettos, its collection of manuscripts (by classical composers like Mahler, Brahms, Chopin, Debussy, Mozart, Schubert, and Richard Strauss) spans six centuries and many countries.

There are many other archives and libraries with collections of original scores worldwide but also some that have been scanned digitally and are available online.

Hand-writing music has been a tradition in jazz for many, many years. With Finale, a powerful and involved music notation software, a handwritten look using special fonts can even be emulated! Have a look at this article, which explains the principle.

 

Recording When Love Falls Apart

But I digressed slightly. The next step was to record the track as a demo, with voice and guitar. That’s where I kind of left it. It wasn’t until playing an unplugged show at the famous singer-songwriter venue Genghis Cohen in Los Angeles, that I felt I needed to also release it. Maybe because that evening, accompanying me on classical guitar, was my co-writer. We performed the ballad for the first time live.

The way the song came to life and people connected to it, motivated me to record it as a single to just “get it out there”. Although I was already working on songs for my solo album it just felt right to release that version as a single – just with voice and classical guitar.songwriting when love falls apart melancholy female jazz songwriters mp3

After recording it in the studio, I started designing the cover. I felt very much inspired by a very tender and touching quote by Virginia Woolf.

“The melancholy river bears us on. When the moon comes through the trailing willow boughs, I see your face, I hear your voice and the bird singing as we pass the osier bed. What are you whispering? Sorrow, sorrow. Joy, joy. Woven together, like reeds in moonlight.” – Virginia Woolf

Melancholy is one theme that runs rampant through her writing. Her image of a singing bird amidst a moonscape depicts this pensive emotion so well. It is interwoven with both sorrow and joy, profoundness and beauty – which is exactly what I had attempted to create in the song.

My ballad “When Love Falls Apart” grew out of exactly these feelings of deep sadness, which via beauty, gave way to melancholy.

I am my heart’s undertaker. Daily I go and retrieve its tattered remains, place them delicately into its little coffin, and bury it in the depths of my memory, only to have to do it all again tomorrow.”
— Emilie Autumn (The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls)

Purchase an mp3 of When Love Falls Apart here:

Listen to the Song in this Playlist on Spotify:

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Eating the darkness songwriting inspiration Francesca Woodman Wallpaper empty room abandoned building naked floorboards self-portrait

Eating the Darkness. Francesca Woodman’s Wallpaper

Posted on by Frances Livings

 

Listen to parts of the blog post here:

 

I was browsing through The New York Times when one article really grabbed my attention. It was on the American photographer, Francesca Woodman, whose work I had only recently discovered. Her oeuvre consists mainly of quite unusual self-portraits and one of her pictures, titled Vanishing Act had inspired me a while ago. It had actually helped me complete my song, Eating the Darkness that I recorded for my first solo album. I learned that over 120 of her works were being displayed at the prestigious Guggenheim in New York, which felt really exciting – because, in a way, it was actually quite personal.

I love art photography and can easily lose myself scouring the Internet, searching for interesting pictures and inspiration. That particular day I was compiling a collection of photos, mainly by female artists. A lot of them were in black and white, many with a surrealistic approach, and somewhat dramatic and staged effects. I didn’t have any specific motifs or topics in mind but just followed my instincts and mood. I downloaded quite a few pictures, whose meaning especially struck or touched me on a very visceral level.

 

Collecting Inspiration From Other Artists

It was the contemporary visual artist Christian Marclay who stated, in the context of creating his video collage The Clock:

If you make something good and interesting and [are] not ridiculing someone or being offensive, the creators of the original material will like it.

Not only is Marclay a collector of images himself, but for his acclaimed installation, which is 24-hours long, he collected thousands of film and television images of clocks film clips depicting time. He created a montage of, edited together so they show the actual time.

Eating the darkness songwriting inspiration Francesca Woodman Wallpaper empty room self-portrait
© Francesca Woodman, Vanishing Act (Space2) 1976

These collections of images often trigger my own creativity by directing me towards a topic – a topic that has most likely already been slumbering in my sub-conscience. Images act for me like teasers or “dream catchers” or even as surfaces for my own emotional projections. Traditionally, this is actually known as Ekphrasis, which means “description” in Greek. An ekphrastic poem, for instance, is a vivid description of a scene or, more commonly, a work of art – whereby the poet may amplify and expand its meaning. It is used to convey the deeper symbolism of the corporeal art form by means of a separate medium.

 

Conveying Feelings in Song Lyrics

In this particular situation, images, thoughts, and feelings must have all run together: I was both deeply touched and inspired by that photograph of Woodman. It not only helped me to get unstuck emotionally but ended up delivering a line for my song, Eating the Darkness.

I had been playing around on the piano – which is what my usual songwriting process looks like – and working on the song Eating the Darkness (click on the title to read the lyrics). I wanted to capture feelings of loneliness and despair, staged in the isolation of an apartment or a room. These are the first verses of the song:

 

I turn the key and stare into a
long, dark corridor
I see the furniture – untouched and cold,
the emptiness starts to unfold.

Dust has settled with no delay
upon my absence, during the day
while everything’s / just frozen in its place
from when I left at twenty past eight

Like with a lot of my songs I went through a strange process: There is an initial spark, the idea or inspiration but still a lot of work to be done. Some songs practically write themselves but with others its like being in labour with pains and horrible cramps burgeoning into anxiety. But when you finally summon up that energy and determination to push, you give birth to something that almost immediately takes on a magical life of its own. If you can’t activate that courage to face all of those feelings, the idea dies.

 

How to Express Feeling Invisible?

I just felt that in the chorus there was still a strong image missing, which is why I kept getting stuck. Even playing the melody over and over again wasn’t helping. I felt that the song per se was strong and authentic. It had emerged very out of the depth of my guts like from a deep-sea cavern. But I wanted to explore and express a feeling of hopelessness, set in the isolation of a room. How could I convey that gnawing and devastating emotion of not feeling relevant, of feeling invisible? Suddenly this photograph entered my mind. It just presented itself. So I opened up my laptop and fished it out of my pictures folder.

The photograph, Vanishing Act from 1976, partially shows the torso of a nude standing on broken, wooden floorboards, in front of the wall of an obviously derelict building. The anonymous, faceless woman is half-covering her body with large sections of the peeling wallpaper – with which she seems to be almost merging. 

“Fading into the wallpaper”, I thought. And suddenly the chorus was complete:

 

And I sit here eating the darkness
and the darkness eats at me
I am fading into the wallpaper
on the second floor apartment number two-o-three

 

Who Is Francesca Woodman?

Prior to finding that photograph I hadn’t heard of the artist Francesca Woodman before. Of course, her name, derived from the same source as mine, caught my attention. But it was after having completed the song lyrics that I suddenly wondered, where and in which stage of her life would I find her? I set out to contact her. Not only did I want to thank her for the inspiration but I also wanted to share my work once the song was recorded…

It only took a few seconds on Google and I was staring at the ugly word – suicide.

Unexpectedly, I just hit the wall. No pun intended.

Suicide is usually the result of deep and dark depression, of being in a place of utter hopelessness. Maybe my highly sensitive side, also my dark side had intuitively picked up on the tragedy of her death through that very picture. Was that why ultimately, my writing had become fluent again? At the same time, questions started rolling in…

Had she perhaps felt that she had exhausted her artistic reservoir with nothing left to say? Had she lived “too fast”? Was she able to channel these feelings so well, because she also suffered in such an intense way? Was this why the photograph had had such a deep impact on me?

But did I really want to speculate about her reason to end her life?

No. I decided to distance myself. I suddenly felt eerily close, almost intrusive upon her life, like a voyeur. So I refocused on my song and recorded it.

 

Images Full of Self-expression, Texture, and Sense of Composition

I didn’t go back to look at more of Woodman’s work until weeks later. A lot of it I still hadn’t seen and I was still very curious about it. What I really appreciate about her photographs is her self-expression, the use of textural elements, and her sense of composition. Her open and almost Victorian sense of Romanticism may be “girlish” as some critics say, but it is also very self-exposing. Some of the pictures are in a square vintage style format, reminding me of Instagram. I find many of Woodman’s pictures playful as well as incredibly mature. To think that, at 22, she left an extensive catalogue of over 800 photographs behind is admirable.

For decades, photography was still thought to fall below painting in the hierarchy of mediums in art. It wasn’t accepted as fine art until the 1940s in the United States and the 1960s worldwide. But especially for women artists, it was an important medium because it granted a mode that was relatively free from the heavy, male-dominated history of the painted canvas.

There’s an anecdote that Woodman was asked by a friend, why she obsessively photographed herself. Her friend may have found it oddly narcissistic and simply still unusual. Because we mustn’t forget that Woodman created all of these self-portraits in the mid and late seventies – so long before the selfie developed as a medium of self-reflection and self-representation. Woodman replied, simply saying:

I am always available.

Woodman exclusively used herself as a model, which made me think of other female photographers, especially of another American photographer and filmmaker: Cindy Sherman. Sherman’s work consists primarily of photographic self-portraits, in many different settings, with wigs, make-up, and props to create various imagined female characters. Another famous self-portraitist is Vivian Maier, considered the queen of street photography, who created many iconic pictures of her reflection in shop windows. There are many more of course, like Diane Arbus (1923 – 1971) who focused on an exceptionally singular demographic – the marginalized. She captured the images of dwarfs, giants, transgender people, nudists, circus performers, and many other surreal personas that captured her attention. She is often considered the Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) of photography because of her work as well as her early suicide.

 

© Diane Arbus, Untitled 1970-71
© Vivian Maier, Self-Portrait, 1954
© Vivian Maier, Untitled, undated

The British art historian, Frances Borzello, who specializes in the social history of art, wrote a book on female self-portraits and female nudes. It is titled Seeing Ourselves: Women’s Self Portraits. I found it most relevant, that she notes: The singular importance of this particular genre, the self-portrait is for women a “way to present a story about herself for public consumption,” a rare break from the typical objectification of the female form as depicted by the male artist.

 

Eating the darkness songwriting inspiration Francesca Woodman peeling wallpaper fireplace empty room abandoned house self-portrait
© Francesca Woodman, House #4 1976
Eating the darkness songwriting inspiration Francesca Woodman polka dot dress peeling wallpaper floorboards empty room abandoned house self-portrait
© Francesca Woodman, Polka Dots 1976
Eating the darkness songwriting inspiration Francesca Woodman body print black shoes woman floorboards empty room abandoned house self-portrait
© Francesca Woodman, Untitled 1976

Eating the Darkness. Desolate & Abandoned Interiors

What strikes me most is the textural quality of the settings, in which Woodman stages her photographs. Frequently, the interiors are empty, decaying rooms, with peeling wallpaper, cracked plaster, broken floorboards, and flaking paintwork. In their roughness, they are diametrically opposed to the smoothness of her young and flawless body. On the other hand, in many of her photographs, she seems to merge with her environment, which gives them a haunting quality.

The photographer, Victoria O’Rourke had similar thoughts about Woodman’s integration and depiction of wallpaper:

 

The wallpaper also puts the identity of Woodman in a state of flux in two ways – by physically hiding her and by forcing into your mind the very literal and paradigmatic image of a second skin. It joins neatly with the idea of a shifting identity, rather than Woodman presenting herself as a whole. She transforms before us, not into another human being or character, but simply into the wall. ~ Victoria O’Rourke, photographer

 

Eating the darkness songwriting inspiration Francesca Woodman peeling wallpaper floorboards empty room abandoned house woman self-portrait
© Francesca Woodman, 1976

These rooms look desolate and possess a strong notion of abandonment. They are very similar to the atmosphere of space I wanted to create in my song without using lengthy descriptions.

 

Wandering rooms like in quarantine

I’m starring at the clock, on elasticated time

brain waves flickering, mercury mind

like a black’n white TV in 1969

 

Losing my mind, losing my mind…

“Losing my mind…” maybe we are all afraid of that sometimes. It can feel infectious – is why I had distanced myself from the artist after the initial encounter? I had peeped in but knew I had to protect myself and very quickly slam the book shut again. After learning about her suicide, it was painful to see her pale and vulnerable body in contrast with the diminishing interior. Moreover, it was a fearless easiness and eagerness; revealing a form of self-exploration, that stood out against the derelict environment.

But another sensation that arose much later was gratitude. Suddenly, I felt fortunate that I had connected with this picture – and ultimately, with another creative force through my own art. The connection wasn’t formed through a biographical prism – or even the dramatic notion of an artist’s suicide. Because it can sometimes be difficult to push past layers of fragmented knowledge and prejudice, a sense of sensationalism even… especially in an era of information overload, or fake news, and constant accessibility per Dr. Google.

 

Only when “absorbing” art in an almost meditative state, is it possible to retrieve what lies beneath these layers and connect with our own authentic thoughts and feelings. – Frances Livings

This is exactly what I feel she did in her work. She tried to expose herself and be literally, as naked as possible. We will never know whether this specific image, the wallpaper was created to express a loss of self-worth. That may have been what I personally projected onto it. I am grateful that a fellow artist gave me something to connect with, almost like a piece of her soul. Because isn’t that what every person who creates seeks to achieve? We want to touch or inspire someone and almost live on through our work. Francesca Woodman definitely hasn’t faded into the wallpaper. And I am fighting not to either…

 

Thank you for reading!

You are welcome to share any thoughts in the comment box below.

– Frances Livings

 

Buy your copy of Eating The Darkness here:

 

If you found joy or inspiration in this post  

 

Watch The Documentary The Woodmans here:

Livings in Los Angeles – Ant Man, Teddy and Rabbit. Thoughts on the Artist Mike Kelley

Posted on by Frances Livings

One afternoon, on one of my frequent outings to the Galerie der Gegenwart (gallery of contemporary art) in Hamburg, I found myself transfixed by eight very unusual portrait photographs. Individually depicted were seven cuddly toys. Their stitched-on fabric or glass button eyes, some loose and lopsided, seemed to be starring at me, wanting urgently to capture my attention. One photograph however, was of a stern looking younger man who I assumed, was of the artist himself. The portraits were all displayed in a very simple frame and hung as a group in two rows of four. They looked like mug shots.

That was in the mid nineties when I was a junior student of art history and first discovered the work of the contemporary American artist Mike Kelley and immediately, it clicked. I didn’t know anything about his background, but again and again I couldn’t help thinking about these colour photographs, which soon found their way into music culture when Kelley created the artwork for Sonic Youth’s 1992 album Dirty, using Ant Man’s “portrait” on the album cover. In addition to being a renowned visual artist, Kelley was also a musician. He was a founding member of the proto-punk Detroit band Destroy All Monsters, who earned a cult following with their experimental performance art. By the 1990’s his art career was blooming.

Mike Kelley, “Ahh…Youth!” 1991, set of 8 Cibachrome photographs, 24 x 20 in. each; one at 24 x 18 in. Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts.

On a cursory glance, the ensemble looked like an advertising campaign for an innocent and happy childhood. But it conjured up a completely different meaning: The features of its relicts, the stuffed animals, were stiff and unhappy looking. These were tatty creatures with dirty, worn and clumped fur, limp limbs and a blank stare. They were after all, visual tokens of having been thrown, kicked, punched, spat, cried and vomited upon. In the presence of a male adult however, they seemed to stand for a collective memory of child abuse and therefore seemed to almost immediately epitomize trauma. Were Ant Man, Teddy and Rabbit physical witnesses to something horrible that was inflicted upon them? Or did they stand – their images physically enclosed and kept in tyrannical order by a strict, linear picture frame – for something that was kept secret within the walls of a children’s nursery?

On the other hand, these individual portraits were like a collection of mug shots depicting cuddly toys more like perpetrators on the stand. From that perspective they seemed to suddenly stand for shame and guilt but how could stuffed animals be guilty of anything? But that’s exactly what was triggering and made the artwork so memorable. In society nurseries are considered to be safe, childhoods happy and parents loving – which is why ultimately, abuse is so crazy making. This is also why there are still so many moral conflicts with challenging these ideas; any notion that would disrupt these stereotypes and clichés are easier being denied, which is why at that point in my life, just intuitively, I found his work compelling and courageous.

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My second very intense encounter with the artist wasn’t until I was living in Los Angeles almost two decades later. On a fairly uneventful day, cup of coffee in hand, I was flicking through the L.A. Times when I read that he had committed suicide. I was shocked. He was only 57 and had by then established himself as an artist internationally. Online I read in further articles that only around four hours after confirmation of his death, an unofficial, makeshift memorial had started to appear in an abandoned carport, a few blocks from Kelley’s home in the Farley Building in Highland Park. Built from stuffed toys, wax candles, Afghans and dried corn, mourners began replicating his assemblage More Love Hours and Wages of Sin, two paired installations Kelley had exhibited in the Whitney’s 1989 Biennial. I also learned that The Mike Kelley Foundation was organizing a memorial that was to be held at his studio in Eagle Rock/Highland Park.

I felt he deserved my tribute too. He had shown courage touching upon subjects that are still – thirty years later – socially somewhat taboo. As a child you mostly have no alley when being abused or mistreated, ignored, neglected by a parent. He epitomized these complicated and highly problematic emotions.

So on one of these for Los Angeles typical, far too mild February evenings, my husband drove through dimly lit streets to Kelley’s former residence. We parked on a side street lined with old gnarly oak trees, spiked with well-kept 19th century craftsman bungalows, typical for South Pasadena. Like many areas of Los Angeles, it felt very insular, especially because of the isolating pockets of dim lighting. I walked up to the main road towards the building in which the memorial was taking place. Its concrete steps led up to a very somber looking entrance where a handful of people stood, collectively nodding as if to acknowledge our arrival. I felt a slight wave of guilt wash over me for being curious in a weirdly voyeuristic way. I had never met this man and yet I was showing up at a memorial – like a grief tourist?

Approximate another 100 people and I wandered around aimlessly through this vast space, which had been, only days prior to his death, his studio. Plastic cup in hand, filled with cheap red wine, I explored a maze of small administrative looking side-rooms, watching sometimes only for minutes films that Kelley had created. The main space, his studio, where more art installations were displayed and further screenings took place, reminded me of a large airplane hangar.

I was not really interested in speculating about why precisely he killed himself. From the press I later learned that he suffered from depression – quelle surprise. Looking at his body of work, one may interpret his works of art, like described above, as a result of trauma, translated into the many quite disturbing images he produced. But I wasn’t interested in asking whether this ensemble of abused looking creatures gave the observer biographical information.

Probably like a lot of other people, I asked myself, why would he end his own life? Unlike many artists he was successful and popular. Being a struggling artist myself, it actually made me a bit angry. How dare he? How selfish. I suddenly felt very strongly that every artist, whether writer, painter or musician carries a responsibility towards their creations, to ensure the future delivery of such. Without them their art will not be created and the commercial art world takes over. How can therefore someone give up on him- or herself without giving up on their art? Suicide is the conscious choice to depart from one’s life. Most artists are controlling. They have to be. I know from my own work that once I envision something and have a precise idea of what and how I want to create something, I am very adamant about its execution. I will explore, search, uncover, unravel, shuffle and experiment but once I get close to what I was meant to create I don’t dither or question. Interwoven with this notion is the question, where does art end and where does the artist start?