Aupres de mon arbre Nostalgia for the simple life he once enjoyed

After Georges Brassens had achieved world-wide success, he was a wealthy man, living in the greatest of comfort.  However, when he looks back, he strongly misses the happy relaxation of the early years when he was very poor and lived in conditions of incredible deprivation. At the end of this post, I give details from Brassens' biography, to explain his regrets.

Auprès de mon arbre, Je vivais heureux J'aurais jamais dû m'éloigner d' mon arbre. Auprès de mon arbre, Je vivais heureux. J'aurais jamais dû le quitter des  yeux(1) J'ai plaqué(2) mon chêne Comme un saligaud Mon copain le chêne Mon alter ego On était du même bois Un peu rustique un peu brute Dont on fait n'importe quoi Sauf naturell'ment les flûtes(3). J'ai maint'nant des frênes Des arbr's de Judée(4). Tous de bonne graine(5) De haute futaie Mais toi, tu manques à l'appel(6) Ma vieille branche de campagne Mon seul arbre de Noël Mon mât de cocagne(7). (Refrain) Auprès de mon arbre, Je vivais heureux J'aurais jamais dû m'éloigner d'mon arbre Auprès de mon arbre, Je vivais heureux. J'aurais jamais dû le quitter des yeux Je suis un pauvr' type J'aurais plus de joie J'ai jeté ma pipe Ma vieill' pipe en bois Qu'avait fumé sans s' fâcher Sans jamais m'brûlé la lippe L' tabac d' la vache enragé(8) Dans sa bonn' vieill' têt' de pipe J'ai des pip's d'écume Ornées de fleurons De ces pip's qu'on fume En levant le front Mais j' retrouv'rai plus ma foi Dans mon coeur ni sur ma lippe(9) Le goût d' ma vieill' pip' en bois Sacré nom d'un' pipe !(10) (Refrain) Auprès de mon arbre, Je vivais heureux J'aurais jamais dû m'éloigner d'mon arbre Auprès de mon arbre, Je vivais heureux. J'aurais jamais dû le quitter des yeux     Le surnom d'infâme Me va comme un gant D'avecques ma femme J'ai foutu le camp Parc' que depuis tant d'années C'était pas un' sinecure De lui voir tout l' temps le nez Au milieu de la figure(11) Je bats la campagne Pour dénicher la Nouvelle compagne Valant celle-là Qui, bien sûr, laissait beaucoup Trop de pierr's dans les lentilles Mais se pendait à mon cou Quand j' perdais mes billes. (Refrain) Auprès de mon arbre, Je vivais heureux J'aurais jamais dû m'éloigner d' mon arbre Auprès de mon arbre, Je vivais heureux. J'aurais jamais dû le quitter des yeux   J'avais un' mansarde Pour tout logement Avec des lézardes Sur le firmament Je l'savais par coeur depuis Et pour un baiser la course J'emmenais mes bell's de nuit(12) Faire un tour sur la grande ourse.     J'habit' plus d' mansarde Il peut désormais Tomber des hall'bardes Je m'en bats l'oeil (13) mais, Mais si quelqu'un monte aux cieux(14) Moins que moi j'y paie des prunes(15) Y a cent sept ans(16) qui dit mieux Qu' j'ai pas vu la lune(17)! (Refrain) Auprès de mon arbre, Je vivais heureux J'aurais jamais dû m'éloigner d' mon arbre Auprès de mon arbre, Je vivais heureux. J'aurais jamais dû le quitter des yeux

When close beside my tree, I lived blissfully Never should I have gone away from my tree. When close beside my tree, I lived happily. Never should I have let it from my sight. I ditched my oak tree Like a heartless oaf My pal, the oak tree My alter ego We were of the same wood A bit rustic, a bit rough Used to make anything Except flutes, naturally. I've now got ash trees. Trees of Judea. All of good stock Of high class timber But you, your absence is felt.  My old branch of the country My one‘n only Christmas tree My mast of Cocagne. (Refrain) When close beside my tree, I lived blissfully Never should I have gone away from my tree When close beside my tree, I lived happily. Never should I have let it from my sight. I’m just a poor guy I’d have no more joy    I threw out my pipe My old wooden pipe That had smoked, without trouble Without ever burning lip Tobacco what I could scrounge In its good, well-aged pipe bowl. I own meerschaum pipes Adorned with flowerlets Some of those pipes smoked Lifting up the front, But, dammit, I won’t find again In my heart nor on my lip. The taste of my old wood pipe Sacré nom d'un' pipe ! (Refrain) When close beside my tree, I lived blissfully Never should I have gone away from my tree When close beside my tree, I lived happily. Never should I have let it from my sight. The label "traitor" Fits me like a glove. Leaving my wife I simply cleared off 'Cause for so many years It had been no sinecure To see all the time, her face Full of reproach. I frantically searched To discover the New lady friend As good as the former Who, I admit, left a lot Too many stones in the lentils But threw her arms round my neck When I had the blues (Refrain) When close beside my tree, I lived blissfully Never should I have gone away from my tree When close beside my tree, I lived happily. Never should I have let it from my sight. I had an attic room For my sole lodgings With cracks opening To the firmament I got t' know it by heart since And charging one kiss to for the trip I would take my night beauties On a tour over the Great Bear. I live in no attic now So henceforth it can Pour down cats and dogs That concerns me not But if anyone scales heaven Less than I, I'd eat my hat  It's 107 years, beat that! Since I last saw the moon!  (Refrain) When close beside my tree, I lived blissfully Never should I have gone away from my tree When close beside my tree, I lived happily. Never should I have let it from my sight.

TRANSLATION NOTES

1) Out of sight and out of mind in French is “loin des yeux, loin du coeur”

2)Plaquer means to ditch, to walk out on, but there is a pun because it means to veneer oak etc

3) This line is meaningless in English. The expression in French is : “être du bois dont on fait des flûtes » which means to be all things to all men and not a person of principle.

4) Tradition says that Judas, someone else who betrayed his background hung himself from an ash

5) Etre de la mauvaise graine means to be of bad stock, perhaps crude like his natural background

6) tu manques à l'appel - literally this meams that you are missing at the roll call.

7) In village festivities, legs of ham, bottles, and other goodies were hung on a mât de cocagne and for the entertainment of the crowd young people used to climb up precariously to retrieve them.

8) manger de la vache enragée means to eat anything out of desperate hunger.  In the German prison camps, French prisoners lacking tobacco smoked all kinds of concoctions that got the same name.  To give myself a shorter word for "tobacco", I use the alternative word "shag" which the dictionary tells me should correctly refer to a coarse tobacco cut into fine shreds.

9) ma lippe - "Lippe" means the lower lip

10) Sacré nom d'une pipe (A French oath, which is a distortion of swearing "On God’s holy name !" – Here with a "smoking" pun intended)

11) The phrase “cela paraît comme le nez au milieu du visage » means that it looks obvious.

12) Y a cent sept ans - Il y a 107 ans means "since a very long time ago".

(13)  Je m'en bats l'oeil - This idiom expresses complete indifference to something

(14) J'emmenais mes bell's de nuit – See the biographical notes below about Brassens’ habit of sneaking girls into his room, without Jeanne catching them.

(15) j'y paie des prunes - This idiom means that he would pay anything to see that.  However the idiom "Faire quelque chose pour des prunes" is "to do something for peanuts/ for nothing" so the two idioms do not fit logically. 

(16) Mais si quelqu'un monte aux cieux moins que moi j'y paie des prunes.- To go up to the heavens means to reach sexual climax.  In other songs, Brassens suggests that during his relationship with Joha Heimann, he is totally sex-starved.

17)The moon to which he refers in the last line has a second meaning of a well-rounded female bottom, his admiration for which he expresses in other songs. See VenusCallipyge

Please click here to return to the alphabetical list of my Brassens selection

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

During the war Brassens was living in Paris. In 1943, Brassens was conscripted into a German compulsory work service program and sent to a camp in Germany. After a year, Brassens returned to Paris on a two-week leave, Instead of going back to Germany, he went into hiding at the home of a couple, Jeanne and Marcel Planche. 

Jeanne Planche and Georges Brassens were lovers and their shared love remained of  very great importance to Brassens.  I tell their story in a short biography:  "The storyof Georges Brassens and his Jeanne"

The home of the Planches, was in fact a Parisian hovel at 9 impasse Florimont, which had no gas, no water and no electricity. Brassens went there in an emergency for a temporary stay but he elected to stay on for 22 years until 1966. In his early years he had had little to live off but his professional career began to  flourish spectacularly after 1952.  incredibly, he preferred to continue to live in the familiar squalor of this depressed area, where he enjoyed true love and friendship.

Among the pleasures was the company of the easy-going street girls.  Brassens best friend from the labour camp days was Pierre Onténiente who later joined him there as his neighbour. After the death of Brassens , Onténiente told how Brassens had a duplicate key to  Onténiente's apartment so that he could sneak lady friends there at night, without arousing Jeanne's jealousy. His room became, as he puts it euphemistically: “le lieu de ses rendez-vous galants ».

Later in life of course, Brassens had the wealth to live in the most salubrious accommodation and in  a much superior social milieu.  The non-materialistic Brassens, however, continued to miss the relaxed simplicity of his deprived past.