ABSTRACT
The close association between poetry and popular song has been a constant feature of French culture for a thousand years, since the troubadours, and the relationship has taken many different forms at different periods of French social history (Looseley, 2013, pp. 52–5). In the twentieth century this association has taken on a new lease of life thanks to the proliferation of electronic media, leading to what has been described as a ‘golden age’ of the French singer-songwriter in the decades after the Second World War (Calvet, 1995, p. 58; Hawkins, 2000, pp. 213–18; Cordier, 2014, pp. 167–80). The purpose of this chapter is to outline the origins of this renaissance, focusing mainly on the figure of Léo Ferré, who embodies in the clearest way the dynamic interaction between a literary tradition of poetry and a current of popular music amplified by the mass media. The career of Ferré will be situated in relation to his contemporaries Charles Trenet, Georges Brassens and others who contributed to this evolution in decisive ways. These figures appear to have offered role models for similar, later careers of singer-songwriters in other European countries. A final section will attempt a comparison of these developments with analogous trends in Anglo-American popular music, with particular reference to the role of the singer-songwriter, briefly exploring the differences of conception between them.
