Froog posted the other day on great movie songs, taking inspiration from the American Film Institute’s (AFI’s) “100 Years – 100 Songs” list of 2004. He pointed out some strange omissions (even considering the raw list of four hundred nominees from which the hundred were selected).
I’m not much surprised that no songs from the soundtrack of 1991’s Henry & June made either list. (It was probably considered a non-American and maybe even “non-fictional” film, violating some of the criteria listed at the foot of this page.) A pity. No matter what you thought of the film’s NC-17 rating — the first ever! — or of its caliber as a film, the music which accompanied everything onscreen was (I thought) a model of how to match musical sensibility to a particular film’s time, place, and “feel.”
Nowhere does this match seem truer than in the recording of Josephine Baker’s “J’Ai Deux Amours” (“I Have Two Loves”) which closed the film.
It made a canny signature song for Baker in general, and (sixty years later) for Henry & June in particular. The title — in English, “I Have Two Loves” — cuts in several directions at once. The “two loves” (per the song’s lyrics) are not human loves but geographic and cultural ones: “my country and Paris.” Baker herself was a black American who utterly bloomed in pre-World War II France, especially Paris. Still, says Ethan Mordden’s The Guest List:
Baker’s two loves were not, as one might think, America and Paris. The number was introduced at the Casino de Paris, in 1930, in a scene laid on the African shore, where Adrien Lamy played a French colonist who wants to take native girl Baker back to France. Composer Vincent Scotto and lyricists Géo Koger and the Casino’s producer, Henry Varna, wrote this number for Baker as a woman torn between Paris and Africa. Further, to the French, “mon pays” means “my province” as much as “my country.” Thus, Baker’s two loves never included America.
But even without the full lyrics, “things” are happening with the title alone:
- The film (based on Anaïs Nin’s book of the same name) is about Nin’s relationships with American author Henry Miller and his wife, June: Anaïs to Henry, Henry to June, and Anaïs to June (all vice-versa, of course).
- Baker was (fairly famously) bisexual; for her to declare in song I have two loves was virtually an open wink at this reputation.
Yet I fell in love with this song — this performance of it — way before I knew any of that. I’m not especially one way or the other about it until about two minutes into its three-plus-minute length. But suddenly, Baker’s trilling voice is joined by a man’s (Adrien Lamy, mentioned above, and pictured at left), and for most of the rest of the song he assumes responsibility for the lyrics. Baker “merely” accompanies him, in a wordlessly vocalized run of counterpoint and harmony which twines sinuously — like some exotic Beaux-Arts species of vine — around and within the pauses of Lamy’s voice. It’s really, for me, among the most memorable ninety seconds of music I know — especially given that I understand no French myself!
Here are Josephine Baker and Adrien Lamy, singing of their two loves:
Lyrics:
J’Ai Deux Amours
(by Vincent Scotto and Geo Koger; performance by Josephine Baker and Adrien Lamy)On dit qu’au delà des mers
Là-bas sous le ciel clair
Il existe une cité
Au séjour enchanté
Et sous les grands arbres noirs
Chaque soir
Vers elle s’en va tout mon espoirJ’ai deux amours
Mon pays et Paris
Par eux toujours
Mon cœur est ravi
Ma savane est belle
Mais à quoi bon le nier
Ce qui m’ensorcelle
C’est Paris, Paris tout entier
Le voir un jour
C’est mon rêve joli
J’ai deux amours
Mon pays et ParisQuand sur la rive parfois
Au lointain j’aperçois
Un paquebot qui s’en va
Vers lui je tends les bras
Et le cœur battant d’émoi
A mi-voix
Doucement je dis “emporte-moi!”J’ai deux amours…
Translation (approximate, of course :) — corrections more than welcome!):
I Have Two Loves
It is said that above the seas,
Over there under the clear sky,
Exists a city, where the stay is enchanted,
And under the big black trees,
Every evening,
Towards it tend all my hopes.I have two loves
My country and Paris.
By them always
Is my heart ravished.
My savannah* is beautiful,
But why deny that
what puts a spell on me is Paris,
Paris in its entirety.Seeing it one day
Is my pretty dream.
I have two loves,
My country and Paris.(Repeat)
My savannah is beautiful,
But why deny that
what puts a spell on me is Paris,
Paris in its entirety.
Seeing it one day
Is my pretty dream.
I have two loves,
My country and Paris.When at the distant shore
I sometimes see a ship depart
To him I extend my arms
And heart beating with excitement,
Whisper softly, I say, “Take me!”I have two loves…
_____________________________
* “My savannah“? Yeah. I think this probably refers to the home of the African “native girl” described by Mordden’s interpretation. Generalized, if so, you can probably just read this phrase as something like “my home” or “the place I came from.” (In Madeleine Peyroux’s cover of the song, My savannah becomes Manhattan.)
marta says
Funny–one of my stories for May uses Henry & June. Now Josephine Baker is probably several months worth of stories. And Nin. And Miller…
Froog says
I had been wondering if, in colonial times, the French used savane of a particular habitat or region in Africa. But the Serengeti seemed the most obvious contender…. and that’s in the (former) British bit in East Africa.
M Lamy – in that photo – is a very strange-looking chap!
Froog says
And thanks for the link, of course. It will be interesting to see if any of your formidably erudite regulars succumb to the compulsion to add their own selections to my comment thread.
Nance says
This is eerie for me, these juxtapositions. Just responding as I read…
That list of songs gave me chills, my inner disc jockey flipping platters on and off the cerebral turntable at warp speed…and each memory crystalline for about three bars. Had to stop. Vertigo. Bookmarked, though.
Henry & June. Got hooked on Nin and Miller in the early seventies, read all I could find. Never saw the movie (wouldn’t have shown here and, with young teens in the house, my mind was anywhere–anywhere else you can name–at the time), but will, now. Watched a clip of Thurman and de Madeiros in the speakeasy…what superb casting! De Madeiros face and form are the very image of the Anais in my mind’s eye. I do hope, though, that they allow her in the movie to come off a bit more dreamy and wounded, elsewhere; it just won’t work to keep her so off-hand and disengaged as she seemed in my clip, for Anais was never off-hand or disengaged.
“…a wordlessly vocalized run of counterpoint and harmony which twines sinuously — like some exotic Beaux-Arts species of vine…” Perfect.
John says
marta: now I’ve got to look for that, too. :)
(Off the top of my head, I couldn’t remember any explicit references to the book or the movie, and a Google search on the two names at lakebelle.wordpress.com came up empty-handed. Maybe it’s more like a situation?)
John says
Froog: hadn’t even thought that “savane” might refer to a particular place. (Perhaps the name of a club where one can dance the second line, ha.)
Lamy was a tough research project. I’m not 100% convinced that picture IS of him, but the file name — something like adrien_lamy.jpg — certainly sounded definitive. And I couldn’t find any information of substance about him. I finally decided to go with what I had. Which, agreed, is very strange-looking. I’m hopeful (for his memory’s sake) that was just a costume worn for a stage or film role.
John says
Nance: curiously, or not, I read nothing by either Nin or Miller until I was well into adulthood. I think their reputations for sexual, um, “interestingness” made me think, vaguely, that respectable young men should not investigate.
The operative word there being “respectable,” I eventually got over it.
De Madeiros was AMAZING casting in terms of her “look.” (Ditto Fred Ward as Miller.) I don’t know about off-hand and disengaged, though; it’s been a while since I last watched the film (we had it on tape, and upgraded to DVD!), but my recollection of her interpretation might be summed up as languorous.
I’ll be interested to hear your reaction to the film!
Nance says
I WAS well into my adulthood in the early seventies, but don’t tell anyone ; )
marta says
@John – I think the characters just mention Nin’s diary, but when I wrote that I had the book Henry & June next to me. And it probably is one of those stories where authorial nervousness kicked in…
Jayne says
My mother has quite a collection of old French songs. I’ll have to ask her about Lamy.
I agree, I think the best part of this song, the moment that really satiates, is when Lamy arrives well into the song. It’s just beautiful. And as much as I love this duo, and Baker, I just adore Peyroux’s gentle interpretation of this song.
When we awake to the rising sun at my mother’s remote place (a cabin my father built) on a lake up in Maine, Peyroux, this song, is what rings in the air, get’s us swaying and down by the shoreline, anticipating another unhurried day of doing absolutely nothing important. (Of which I love being conspicuously aware.) ;)
John says
Nance:
I think the only thing dividing us here is the operative (and all-but hidden) word, “well.” I don’t think I got “well into adulthood” until sometime… well, really? I’d probably have to pin it at around the early 2000s. :)
John says
marta: I have a feeling that references to authorial nervousness (also envelope pushing and so on) are going to be cropping up in your comments, posts, and so on, long after anyone but you and I remembers what they refer to. Funny. :)
John says
Jayne: satiates. Good word. Exactly.
No matter the version, I think it’s delightful that you seem to have adopted “J’Ai Deux Amours” as an unofficial theme song for annual visits to a treasured vacation spot.
I too love Madeleine Peyroux’s interpretation of just about anything. When I make up mix CDs for people, it’s always tempting to include more than one number by her.
(One of these days — riiiiiiight — given some experience with producing mashup software and such, I want to do an interleaved sort of mashup of (a) Peyroux’s cover of “Looking for the Heart of Saturday Night” (down around the middle of this post) and (b) the Sinatra/Jobim “Wave” (track #3 in the RAMH 3rd-anniversary mix).)
Froog says
M Lamy in that picture somehow reminds me of Joyce Grenfell.
And I’ll leave you to look reference that up, JES, (if you need to) rather than embedding a Wiki link.
A fulsomely flattering comparison in every respect, save possibly the gender.
John says
Froog: images abound for comparison, fulsomely flattering or not. Excellent reference.
Your comment was worth reading just for the sake of that “possibly.” :)
[Aside: have you noticed that reCaptcha’s word choices are getting ever farther away from standard keyboard reality? I have no idea what to do with umlauted characters, for instance — let alone two recent examples in which I was presented with 18th-century-style fs-for-s. So glad that the little widget’s maintainers thought to include the
button!]
Jayne says
@John – Oh please let me know when that mashup is ready! I left another comment on your April birthday post. ;)
Rene' Shaw says
priceless find… merci beaucoup!!!
Annie says
I saw Josephine Baker at the Royal Command Performance in November 1974 and she was awesome ! I was very young and had never heard of her = but I feel very privileged to have seen her entertain live !!
John says
That must have been fabulous, Annie — even though she was in her late 60s then, I bet she was memorable! Interestingly, there’s a YouTube clip of (part of) the performance:
nina says
I am actually trying to find out about the origin of ‘J’ai deux amours’ ‘s melody; it sounds very close to “Who could care” (Bob Brookmeyer?)but I can’t find anything on the Internet…
John says
Hi there — apparently it was written by Vincent Scotto, Géo Koger, and Henri Varna. Josephine Baker’s version (according to the SecondHandSongs site, which lists artists who’ve recorded a given song) seems to have been the original. This book goes further, asserting that they actually wrote the song for Baker.
There’s some more background information about it in this book, which says the song was actually commissioned for Baker by the owners of the Casino de Paris.
The English-language Wikipedia doesn’t seem to have an article about it, but the French one does. Of course, if you can’t read French (I can’t, myself), then knowing this probably won’t help. :)
Thanks for stopping by and for asking the question!
Gavin S. says
Thanks for posting this. I am a relative of Josephine Baker (her half-brother is my relation). I also enjoyed the discourse of comments. I learned something new, and saw the youtube video from her London performance in ’74 for the first time. Bravo! She was a true rock star!
John says
Thank you for stopping by, and thanks for the comment, Gavin!
Very true. It’s easy to believe that if there’d been no Josephine Baker, there’d have been no Madonna, Lady Gaga, et many al.
Alex says
Thank you for this. I was told about Baker growing up, so finding this is pleasing to me.
John says
Hello there Alex — thanks for stopping by; I’m very glad you liked the post!