七十年不曾褪色的玫瑰人生：La Vie en Rose

“当他拥我入怀/低声对我说话/我看见玫瑰色的人生”刘欢与苏菲玛索的演唱让广大中国观众了解到了这支蜚声世界的法国香颂。曲子背后，是一位有着传奇人生的女歌手，由她的人生经历改编而成的电影拿下了奥斯卡小金人。今天我们就来走进这支经久不衰的浪漫旋律，和它背后的人生故事。

Written in a pavement café on the Champs Elysées in 1945, “La Vie en rose” was a song whose giddy romance swept the French national spirit from the ashes of the second world war and sent it soaring around the world.The sole author of this phoenix song was France's “little sparrow”：Edith Piaf.1945年，“La Vie en rose”诞生于香榭丽舍大道的一家露天咖啡馆。这首歌，带着些轻佻的浪漫，扫清二战的余烬，让法国民族精神再次焕发，并响彻世界。这首长盛不衰的歌曲的唯一作者是法国“小麻雀”Edith Piaf。

Born Edith Gassion in 1915 and discovered singing on the streets of Paris's red light district in 1935, Piaf was a singer whose career had taken flight during the second world war.Though not a conventional beauty, the 4ft 10in diva was a volcano of drama, whose murky tales of murder, abandonment and prostitution were given an added frisson by her guttural vibrato.

原名Edith Gassion的她出生于1915年。1935年，她在巴黎红灯区的街道上唱歌时被发掘。二战期间，Piaf声名鹊起。尽管并不是传统意义上的美人，这位4英尺10英寸高的天后的人生依然颇具传奇色彩，她颤抖的喉音，让谋杀、被抛弃、卖淫这些阴暗的故事传言，又多了一丝恐怖的成分。

Piaf sang through the war as through the tragedies in her personal life, which included the death of her two-year-old daughter from meningitis in 1935 and that of her great love, the boxer Marcel Cerdan, who was killed in a plane crash in 1949.

无论是在战争年代，还是她人生中的艰难岁月，Piaf一直在唱歌，即便在1935年，她两岁的女儿因脑膜炎而夭折， 1949年，她挚爱的丈夫，拳击手Marcel Cerdan死于空难，她也没有停止。

Performing for the occupying Germans as well as her fellow countrymen, Piaf was briefly branded a collaborator.But rumours of Nazi-pleasing were firmly quashed in 1945 when resistance leaders revealed that Piaf had smuggled maps and compasses to French POWs during her prison camp tours.She also posed for photographs with inmates; the photographs were used to create fake identity documents and enabled many prisoners to escape.

Piaf不仅为她的同胞唱歌，也曾给德国占领军表演，因此，Piaf曾在一段时间里被斥为通敌者。但1945年，抵抗军领袖透露Piaf在战俘营巡演期间曾把地图和指南针偷偷带给法国战俘，为纳粹献媚的流言也就不攻自破。她也曾和战俘一起拍摄照片，这些照片后来被用于伪造身份文件，很多战俘因此得以逃脱。

After the war, as France sucked up Marshall Plan money and morale-boosting jazz records from the US, Piaf went for a drink with her friend Marianne Michel.The younger singer complained that nobody was writing her any new songs, so Piaf grabbed a piece of paper and dashed off “La Vie en rose” for her.

战后，法国不仅获得了美国马歇尔计划的经济援助，也从美国引进了令人振奋的爵士音乐。Piaf与朋友Marianne Michel一起喝酒时，这位年轻一些的歌手对Piaf抱怨没人给她写新歌了。因此Piaf抓起一张纸，并一口气创作出了“La Vie en rose”。

The song's central metaphor—of seeing the world afresh, through rose-tinted glasses—was something Piaf knew all about, having been blind for several years in her childhood and claiming to have been cured, aged seven, after the prostitutes working in her grandmother's brothel pooled their earnings to send her on a Catholic pilgrimage.

这首歌最核心的象征——透过玫瑰色的玻璃，看到一个崭新的世界——Piaf非常了解这种感受。Piaf自称，童年时，她曾经失明，多亏7岁时奶奶家妓院中的妓女倾囊相助，让她去朝圣，才最终治愈。

Michel recorded the song first—a sweet, xylophone-frosted version—with Piaf laying down her own, definitive version two years later.As a hymn to a love affair so beautiful that it allows the singer to forget all “les ennuis, les chagrins” （weariness and grief）, it saw the tragedienne, like her nation, transcend pain.

Michel第一个录制了这首歌，她的版本由木琴伴奏，非常甜美。两年后，Piaf又录制了自己的最终版。这支歌颂爱情的曲子如此优美，让歌手们忘记了一切“les ennuis, les chagrins”（烦恼与痛苦），它见证了这位悲剧女伶和她的祖国如何平复伤痛。

Piaf's melody whisks you up in its arms and takes you for a slow, dreamy twirl, briefly breaking hold for a few spoken sections before resuming the dance.Her version sold more than 1m copies and made her name across the Atlantic, where Americans were startled to behold such a tiny woman in a simple black frock, exuding none of the Hollywood glamour to which they were accustomed.

Piaf的曲子拂过，犹如将你轻轻揽入怀中，再带着你缓慢地，梦幻般地旋转，在几段唱词中简短地停顿后继续跳舞。Piaf的唱片销量高达一百万张，让她的名字在大西洋彼岸的美国传颂。美国人惊讶地打量这位身着黑色连衣裙的娇小女人，在她身上，美国人找不出他们习以为常的好莱坞式的魅力。

词汇总结

giddy[ˈgɪdi]

adj.头晕的;眼花的;轻浮的，轻佻的;轻狂的

vt.& vi.使眩晕;使眼花

Written in a pavement café on the Champs Elysées in 1945, “La Vie en rose” was a song whose giddy romance swept the French national spirit from the ashes of the second world war and sent it soaring around the world.

1945年，“La Vie en rose”诞生于香榭丽舍大道的一家露天咖啡馆。这首歌，带着些轻佻的浪漫，扫清二战的余烬，让法国民族精神再次焕发，并响彻世界。

murky[ˈmɜ:ki]

adj.阴暗的，昏暗的；朦胧的，含糊的，暧昧的

adv.阴暗地，混浊地，可疑地

Though not a conventional beauty, the 4ft 10in diva was a volcano of drama, whose murky tales of murder, abandonment and prostitution were given an added frisson by her guttural vibrato.

尽管并不是传统意义上的美人，这位4英尺10英寸高的天后的人生依然颇具传奇色彩，她颤抖的喉音，让谋杀、被抛弃、卖淫这些阴暗的故事传言，又多了一丝恐怖的成分。

meningitis[ˌmenɪnˈdʒaɪtɪs]

n.脑膜炎

Piaf sang through the war as through the tragedies in her personal life, which included the death of her two-year-old daughter from meningitis in 1935 and that of her great love, the boxer Marcel Cerdan, who was killed in a plane crash in 1949.

无论是在战争年代，还是她人生中的艰难岁月，Piaf一直在唱歌，即便在1935年，她两岁的女儿因脑膜炎而夭折， 1949年，她挚爱的丈夫，拳击手Marcel Cerdan死于空难，她也没有停止。

quash[kwɒʃ]

vt.[法]废除，使无效;捣碎，压碎；平息，镇压

But rumours of Nazi-pleasing were firmly quashed in 1945 when resistance leaders revealed that Piaf had smuggled maps and compasses to French POWs during her prison camp tours.

但1945年，抵抗军领袖透露Piaf在战俘营巡演期间曾把地图和指南针偷偷带给法国战俘，为纳粹献媚的流言也就不攻自破。