His name does not sound familiar ? Jean Dréjac, however, has written for the biggest names in French song: from Edith Piaf to Yves Montand, from Juliette Gréco to Serge Reggiani via Dalida… Jean Brun (his real name), born in Grenoble on June 3, 1921, died in Paris on August 11, 2003. To commemorate the twenty years since the death of this exceptional lyricist, his son Frédéric Brun has published both a fictionalized biography* and a box set** of three CDs in which he reviews his greatest great successes and sketches a touching portrait of the artist. A look back at six standards that marked his career.
Covered this year by Laurent Voulzy, this song actually dates from 1943. Jean Dréjac wrote it with the help of composer Charles Borel-Clerc. A year later, it is the refrain that the French hum during the Liberation. “The reception from the public was as enthusiastic as it was unexpected,” says Frédéric Brun. In no time, all the brasserie orchestras then in vogue on the Grands Boulevards had added it to their repertoire. “Ah, the little white wine, which we drink under the arbours, when the girls are beautiful, near Nogent…”: celebrating the atmosphere of pre-war guinguettes, the song resonates differently after four years of ‘Occupation.
The partition tears off. It sells over a million and a half in a few months! Jean Dréjac who dreamed of being a great performer (“he had boundless admiration for Charles Trénet”, remembers his son) discovers himself an author. “The very conception of this song, however, remains mysterious: he often told me that he had simply ‘heard’ it echoing in his head, like a kind of divine revelation, while he was sailing in a boat on the banks of the Marne, after a boozy lunch,” recalls Frédéric Brun.
“Under the sky of Paris flies a song, it was born today in the heart of a boy. This timeless anthem that celebrates the romantic beauty of the French capital is known around the world. Taken up today on TikTok to accompany the videos of foreign tourists, it is (like “La Vie en rose”) inseparable from Edith Piaf’s repertoire. This planetary hit was however composed in a few hours, one night in 1951. “My father had just won the Grand Prix de la chanson française for “La Chanson de Paris”, interpreted by Jean Sablon, a star of the time. He was approached by the director Julien Duvivier, who was looking for the soundtrack of his film, entitled Under the sky of Paris”, evokes Frédéric Brun.
Convinced that “La Chanson de Paris” was going to be chosen by the filmmaker, Jean Dréjac went to the filming location, accompanied by his composer and friend Hubert Giraud. He makes her listen to the tune. But Duvivier is skeptical. “He asked them to offer him another work the next day. My dad had a date that night in Montparnasse and hadn’t planned on working. On the way back, Hubert Giraud composed this magical melody in one go and convinced him to get down to the lyrics, which he did. Once again, the magic happens. The song would be played all the way to the United States, where it was covered by crooners like Paul Anka, Andy Williams and even Duke Ellington!
This 1955 song marks the first steps of rock’n’roll in France. It is an adaptation by Jean Dréjac of an American success of the time entitled “Black Denim Trousers and Motorcycle Boots”, a hit across the Atlantic written by the duo of songwriters, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, who will put more later their talent in the service of Phil Spector, The Drifters and even Elvis Presley. This is the first title that Dréjac really composed for Piaf (the singer was content to cover “Sous le ciel de Paris”). The lyricist had met the interpreter in the mid-1950s, during one of the many dinners that the singer organized in her apartment on boulevard Lannes, in Paris.
That evening, the singer had asked the lyricist, still crowned with the success of “Under the sky of Paris”, if he had already attended one of his recitals. “As he had answered in the negative, Edith Piaf spent the evening performing his greatest titles and he fell very in love with them”, emits Frédéric Brun. The two artists will maintain an intense relationship, made up of fruitful intellectual and artistic exchanges.
In 1961, “La Chansonnette”, performed by Yves Montand, marked yet another triumph for Jean Dréjac, who wrote in parallel for Juliette Gréco or Marcel Amont. The fashion is then for text songs. It’s the big hour of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. “At this time, my father becomes more caustic, more bitter. Faced with the arrival of 45s and yé-yé, he fears being considered outdated,” says Frédéric Brun. He writes a song with ironic lyrics, whose relative lack of success makes him fear that his time has passed. “Regaine your refrain, dad’s song is ancient history”, sings Yves Montand.
A few months later finally, it is another work that he writes for the same singer, which again arouses the enthusiasm of the public. Although against the current, “La Chansonnette” will impose itself in an astonishing way. “Its audience was multiplied thanks to its broadcast in Eurovision, by a TV channel which wanted to achieve the technical feat of broadcasting the same program throughout the continent”, analyzes the son of Jean Dréjac.
Written on the occasion of the birth of his son in 1960, “Dad is a poet” is one of the most confidential songs in the artist’s repertoire. This title, however, says a lot about his poetry and his sensitivity. Originally written for Jean-Claude Villeminot, better known by his stage name Jean-Claude Pascal (a successful actor and singer at the time), it is probably its most autobiographical author. “Dad is a bohemian, he has no problem, and lives day to day”, we hear there. “My father was a sunny, deeply optimistic and joyful person. He transmitted to me this love of the right and simple word. He often spoke to me about the poets he loved, about Verlaine and his “long sobs” which he praised. Towards the end of his life, he became very spiritual, he was driven by a deep belief in something divine, in the absence of boundaries between life and death, without being attached to any particular religion. In a fragment I found after his death, he wrote: “Matter will take my body but not my soul.” Indeed it seems to me that it still resides in his songs,” says his son.
Fruit of the collaboration of Jean Dréjac and Michel Legrand, this song owes a lot to one of its interpreters, Serge Reggiani, whose lyricist will also sign all the titles of his last album: Children be better than us, in 2001. “My father’s meeting with Michel Legrand is magical. Together they wrote over 80 songs. Among them, “Une vie”, a very beautiful song from the repertoire of Dalida (he had already written her “L’Arlequin de Tolède” in 1960), who in 1971 was undergoing her transformation into a singer with texts .
“Even before working together, they were friends: Michel Legrand was my father’s best man! And dad was also the first to hear the soundtrack of Les Umbrellas de Cherbourg, which Michel had composed for Jacques Demy, ”recalls Frédéric Brun. The two men formed an unparalleled tandem and even if their common songs are not among the best known in the repertoire, they are no less significant. “How Long Is My Youth to Die” was first performed by Michel Legrand himself, then only in his thirties, and already contemplating with nostalgia his youthful years. Reggiani, who later took it over, likes to say that all the writing power of these authors is summed up in the title,” concludes Frédéric Brun.
