Georges Brassens - Les Copains d'abord. Georges Brassens. Georges Brassens (French: [ʒɔʁʒ bʁasɛ̃s]; 22 October 1921 – 29 October 1981) was a French singer-songwriter and poet. Biography[edit] Brassens was born in the town of Sète, a town in southern France near Montpellier. Now an iconic figure in France, he achieved fame through his elegant songs with their harmonically complex music for voice and guitar and articulate, diverse lyrics; indeed, he is considered one of France's most accomplished postwar poets.
He has also set to music poems by both well-known and relatively obscure poets, including Louis Aragon (Il n'y a pas d'amour heureux), Victor Hugo (La Légende de la Nonne, Gastibelza), Jean Richepin, François Villon (La Ballade des Dames du Temps Jadis), and Antoine Pol (Les Passantes). During World War II, he was forced by the Germans to work in a labor camp at a BMW aircraft engine plant in Basdorf near Berlin in Germany (March 1943). After being given ten days' leave in France, he decided not to return to the labour camp. Childhood[edit]
The songs of Georges Brassens with English translation. Les Copains d'Abord - Ballade des dames du temps jadis. Les Copains d'Abord is dedicated to the close friends who joined Brassens on boating trips off the South coast of France in a boat called “Les copains d'abord”. The song was written for a film, Les copains (1964), directed by Yves Robert.
One of the striking features of Brassens’ life was the enduring friendships that he forged, evident also in his other songs. On the original video, since deleted, Brassens continued with "Ballade des dames du temps jadis". To see Villon's poem with translation and commentary please click Ballade des dames du temps jadis2 TRANSLATION NOTES (i)Some malicious observers in the harbours they passed must have suggested that the unprepossessing boat of Brassens with its motley company resembled the survivors of the wreck of the Medusa on their raft as painted by Géricault. (ii)Un père Peinard is an older man, relaxed about the world, who takes life as it comes. Ballade des dames du temps jadis. Les Copains d'abord. QUAND LE CROQU’MORT… - L’Auvergnat est mort - Big Browser - Blog LeMonde.fr.