‘Come, let me sing into your ear’

Molly’s aunt Polly blogs from Paris, and the other day she reported some juicy gossip: the French president may be preparing to announce his engagement to singer Carla Bruni.

You’ll recall that the Hungarian-born Nicolas Paul Stéphane Sarköczy de Nagy-Bocsa was left by his wife soon after taking office in May and, in one of his first appearances as president, was clearly drunk. But if Polly’s tip is true, then he seems to have landed on his feet.

Bruni is an Italian-born French supermodel who is also a talented singer and accomplished songwriter. On her first album, Quelqu’un m’a dit (2003), she breathily croons a dozen songs of her own composition. Her new album, No Promises, features the work of great poets, a fact that intrigued and impressed Chris Wiegand at the Guardian:

Her rendition of Auden’s Lady Weeping at the Crossroads is a highlight, and makes an interesting counterpoint to recordings of Auden reading his own work. It’s also odd to find the one-time face of Chanel and Dolce & Gabbana doing a trio of poems by “higgledy-piggledy” Emily Dickinson (as Wendy Cope once dubbed her). The album’s cover even seems like a bizarre parody of Dickinson’s reclusive persona. Clad in a brief chemise, Carla is seen leafing through a poetry collection in a chic living room that’s elegantly cluttered with a retro radio, stray guitar and assorted objets d’art.

So, à votre santé, M. Sarkozy. And enjoy your poetry.

• Le ciel dans une chambre – Carla Bruni [Mp3]

A lovely song from Quelqu’un m’a dit

• Those Dancing Days Are Gone – Carla Bruni [Mp3]

A bit of Yeats from No Promises

IN ADDITION: The Times—surprise, surprise—is less impressed by Bruni’s talents and her choice of material. But I think Yeats, who often penned poems that were self-consciously song-like, would have liked it. And it certainly takes the poet somewhere different from this earnest old Waterboys classic:

• The Stolen Child – The Waterboys [Mp3]

ONE MORE: Here, Swiss chanteuse Susanne Abbuehl takes a childlike Cummings rhyme and transforms it into something long, sad, slow, and ambiguous. Oh, how getting old sucks!

• maggie and millie and molly and may – Susanne Abbuehl [Mp3]

Comments

[Steven Augustine]

Charmingly breathy, mildly de-tuned talk-singing... somehow, it only really works in French...

[Brendan Wolfe]

Nicely put. This may be why I like French music so much: I can't speak a word of it.