La Bohème

Well well well. It seems as though I’ve well and truly bollocksed up my latest blog embargo. I swing back and forth on my play tyre chewing on my banana(NOT a sick euphemism!)(hey, if I could do that I’d never leave the house!!)(wait, I don’t ever leave the house anyway?)(shit – painted myself into a corner so soon into the blog post – ABORT ABORT ABORT!!!)

Anyway as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted(it’s OK, I forgive you), I swing back and forth on my play tyre, chewing on my big tasty banana(now that’s a sick euphemism), and I lament my decrepit will power, lying there curled up in defeat in the corner, all dishevelled in a dirty raincoat, with unkempt hair and toe nails, muttering gibberish to itself, “I used to be somebody … I could’ve been a contender … No more chaos!!!”.

If I had any sense whatsoever, I’d stick to these embargos and get my priorities sorted before plying my trade in utter bullshit here. But I can’t help it, my mind wanders, drips form into trickles, trickles coalesce into streams, and before I know it I’ve got a raging torrent on my hands, and all I can do is unleash it upon an unsuspecting world.

An Unsuspecting World

So, yknow, I’m sorry for my weak will and all, but in a way, it’s a disease, and in the absence of some kind of specialist mental facility, you guys are my doctors and nurses. Normally I’d buy my doctors and nurses a box of chocolates to say thank you. But I can’t do that under these ridiculous circumstances(thanks Tim Berners Lee – asshole!). I’d have to buy you all a whole box each and the air fares would crucify me. Plus no-one in their right mind would give me their postal address.(It’s OK, I already know where you live precious. I’m looking at you right now. Yes, that sound was me outside)

So instead, I’m going to give you a musical box of chocolates. Yes! It’s a song I wrote especially for you called La Bohème!!!

OK OK OK that’s a shockingly terrible lie. I’m sorry. I panicked and it just came out. I didn’t technically write it, but I feel like I could’ve written it. And if that doesn’t count for something in this godawful cynical world, then I don’t even know what any more.

No, some cheeky Doubtpuppet imposter called Jacques Plante wrote the song apparently. It was immortalised by Charles Aznavour though, and it became his signature song.

I wish I could say that my French was good enough to get all of it without referring to the lyrics but nope – I got most of it from the lyrics, and the rest from the translated lyrics. If I’m honest my French comprehension skills sucked even when I lived in France … “Encore une fois, plus lentement s’il vous plâit?”. I spent most of my time inebriated and can’t remember that year very well. (mission accomplished!)

But that was in a different lifetime, before the secret program, before the terrible experiments, before … THE ACCIDENT …

But I really can’t talk about that I’m afraid.

So back to Charles Aznavour and what he’s saying in this beautiful song …

An ageing man recounts his bohemian days as a poor struggling young artist living and working in the Montmartre area of Paris. He fondly remembers a pauper’s paradise, living in a one-room love nest with his girlfriend who doubled as his nude model. Paying for meals with paintings, gathering in cafés, huddled around stoves, reciting poetry. Up all night touching up drawings before going for a coffee, exhausted but fulfilled.

At various points in the story, he pauses to say what the bohemian lifestyle meant to him at that time:

It meant we were happy …
It meant we only ate once every two days …
It meant you were pretty …
It meant we had genius …
It meant we were twenty years old …
It meant we lived in the zeitgeist …
It meant we were young, we were crazy …

Finally he talks about how he sometimes wanders back there but the place is sad and unrecognisable to him now.

He finally concedes that the bohemian lifestyle doesn’t mean anything any more.

So without further ado, here is the song exquisitely gift wrapped in sheets of vocal velvet for her lady’s pleasure by the one and only Charles Aznavour: